Tucker Carlson persisted with claiming the NSA is spying on him, despite the agency flatly denying it

June 30, 2021

Tucker Carlson persisted with claiming the NSA is spying on him, despite the agency flatly denying it

Tucker Carlson kept up his claim that the NSA is spying on him, despite the agency rejecting it.
On his Tuesday show he described an NSA statement on the issue as "infuriatingly dishonest."
Carlson has long pushed conspiracy theories about "deep state" plots.
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Fox News host Tucker Carlson did not back down from claims he is being spied on by the National Security Agency (NSA), despite the agency in a statement flatly denying it.

The NSA pushed back hard on the allegation the host made on his Monday night show: that the NSA had hacked his personal communications, and planned to leak information in a bid to take his show off air.

-NSA/CSS (@NSAGov) June 30, 2021

The NSA said in response: "This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air."

On the Tuesday night edition of his top-rated Fox News show, Carlson called the statement "infuriatingly dishonest."

He said he did not accept the denial, describing it as "an entire paragraph of lies written purely for the benefit of the intel community's lackeys at CNN and MSNBC."

-Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 30, 2021

He went on to claim that someone working on his show confronted an NSA official over the specific allegation that Carlson's emails had been hacked, and that the official had not denied it.

"We made a very straightforward claim: NSA has read my private emails without my permission... tonight's statement from the NSA does not deny that and instead it comes with this non-sequitur: Tucker Carlson has never been an intel target," he said.

Carlson claimed to have has been tipped off by a whistleblower that he is under surveillance.

-Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 30, 2021

But the claim has been greeted with widespread skepticism, with some critics questioning why his colleagues at Fox News were not covering it as a major story if the evidence is as compelling as Carlson claims.

The claim that "deep state" operatives are seeking to undermine the movement of conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump has long been a favored narrative among Carlson and his allies..

Carlson has long claimed that US intelligence agencies are seeking to persecute ordinary conservatives under the guise of investigating far-right extremism.

He has sought to downplay the significance of the violence during the Capitol riot, and in recent weeks pushed the conspiracy theory that the FBI may have instigated the riot in a bid to entrap Trump supporters.

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