WATCH: Matt Gaetz Demands Inspector General Investigates Tucker Carlson’s Claim of NSA Spying

Rep. Matt Gaetz asked an Inspector General to investigate claims made by Fox News Tucker Carlson that the National Security Agency is spying upon him in an attempt to take him off the air. Thus far, no news outlets have confirmed Carlson’s report, and no cable news outlets have even covered the claim, most notably including Fox News’s own news division itself.

Gaetz’s inquiry came during a House Judiciary Committee hearing focused on investigating potential abuses of power by the Justice Department as part of federal probes into unauthorized leaks of classified information.

Gaetz opened by confirming his belief that the DOJ and Intel community have no business threatening or spying on members of Congress, staff or the press for politics, to which he added “President [Joe] Biden believes the same thing.” But he then pivoted to the actions of Ron Rosenstein’s alleged threatening “Kash Patel, a member of Republican staff with the criminal process if he did not bend to what Mr. Rosenstein wanted at the time” as reported by Fox News.

This was all a pretext to pivot to Carlson’s allegations.

“The most-watched cable news host has been stating for the last several nights that the NSA has been monitoring his communications,” Gaetz stated, “And amazingly, the NSA has issued a statement that is so couched, it is functionally an admission.” Gaetz then proceeded to review both the claims made by Tucker Carlson and the response from the NSA.

“We were told that there was no bulk collection of America’s data,” Gaetz continued, hitting NSA’s past lack of forthrightness. “It turns out there was bulk collection,” to which no one was held to account.

Gaetz concluded by calling for bipartisanship in asking for an “inspector general investigation into any monitoring that the NSA or any other element of the intelligence community is engaged relevant to Tucker Carlson.”

Gaetz is reportedly under current investigation in Florida for alleged sex trafficking and other illicit claims including having sex with a minor.

It seems unlikely that Gaetz will get bipartisan support for an investigation that has thus far received very little attention in mainstream news, but his calling for the investigation just made it far harder for the media, especially Fox News, to continue to ignore.

Watch above via CSPAN2