McCarthy calls for investigation into claims NSA was spying on Tucker Carlson

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced on Wednesday that he asked Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, to look into allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“There is a public report that NSA read the emails of Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Although NSA publicly denied targeting Carlson, I have serious questions regarding this matter that must be answered,” McCarthy said in a statement.

“Given this disturbing trend, I’ve asked HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] Ranking Member Devin Nunes to investigate and find answers on behalf of the American people. The NSA cannot be used as a political instrument, and House Republicans will ensure accountability and transparency,” he continued.

Carlson said on his prime-time show earlier this week that he heard from a whistleblower within the federal government “who warned us that the NSA was reading our electronic communications, our emails and texts and was planning to leak them selectively in an effort to hurt us.”

On Tuesday, the NSA released a statement saying that the allegation that the agency was monitoring electronic communications to subsequently leak them was “untrue.”

“On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to take his program off the air,” the NSA said in its statement.

“NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting,” the agency said. 

The Hill has reached out to the NSA for further comment.