Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday claimed the National Security Agency (NSA) leaked some of his private emails to journalists.
Carlson made the allegation during a Wednesday morning appearance on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria.”
“Yesterday, I learned that — and this is going to come out soon — that the NSA leaked the contents of my emails to journalists in an effort to discredit me. I know because I got a call from one of them saying ‘oh, this is what your email was about,’ ” Carlson said.
“So, it is not in any way a figment of my imagination. It’s confirmed, it’s true,” he continued, adding that Biden administration is trying to gain “leverage” to threaten “opposition journalists.”
“It’s happening to me right now, and I think it’s shocking and I don’t think we should put up with it in a free country,” he said.
When host Maria Bartiromo asked if there was no way anyone else could have seen the emails, Carlson said the only other person was his executive producer.
He added that just before his show aired on Tuesday, he got a call from a reporter who read the email back to him.
“There is no possibility that anyone else could have known. And then again yesterday I get a call right before air, like 7:15, from a journalist I know and like, not many left, but I do like this person. He repeated back to me what’s in my email, he got it because the NSA leaked it, so, yes, entirely real,” Carlson said.
The NSA declined to comment.
The new claim comes after Carlson last month alleged that he was told by a whistleblower that the NSA was spying on him in a bid to get his show off the air.
The NSA refuted his claim, calling the allegations “not true,” and said that, with limited exceptions, the agency may not target a U.S. citizen without a court order. But the next day, Carlson doubled down on his claim and said that the NSA’s statement did not deny that he was being surveilled.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that he asked Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to instigate Carlson’s claims.