Tucker Carlson via (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) Flickr
It wasn’t long ago that Tucker Carlson alleged that the NSA was spying on his communications, while the media rallied against him at the time for these accusations, new evidence suggests that Carlson might be right.
Last week Tucker Carlson alleged that the NSA leaked his personal communications to the press, this would not only be unethical for the government agency to do but it would be illegal. Carlson claimed that a whistleblower from within the government told him that the NSA had obtained his communications and was doing so with the intention of leaking the information to the press.
We now know that Tucker Carlson had planned to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin for his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and was speaking with intermediaries at the Kremlin to accomplish this. Even if these communications were flagged by the NSA Tucker Carlson would have been protected as his identity would have to be masked in accordance with USA law. In order for officials at the NSA to identify him as Tucker Carlson, they would have to go through a length unmasking process to do so.
What we know is that Axios and possibly other outlets somehow got their hands on these private communications, the outlet published some of their contents and cited an “anonymous source.” Carlson is alleging that this “anonymous source” is the NSA. Carlson backs this up with claims that a member of the press came to him to tell him that it was the NSA that had leaked the emails to a number of outlets.
Carlson says that only he and his producer, Justin Wells, knew of the communications. This would mean that a third party would have accessed his private communication without his consent. Carlson believes that this third party is the NSA, he believes this because he was informed by someone that this was the case. Many in the media are now accusing Carlson of lying about his source and instead suggest that Russian agents leaked the communications.
