In late June, Carlson shocked his millions of viewers by reporting during a segment of his nightly show that his emails were being "spied on" by the National Security Agency.
At first, the claim seemed extravagant and perhaps overblown; why would the NSA care about what a journalist is doing, even a conservative like Carlson? But he said an NSA whistleblower confirmed it by reciting information contained in the email that only a spying operation would have discovered.
It turns out that Carlson was exactly right: The NSA was reading his emails. A few days later, Carlson reported that he was attempting to land an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he defended by stating that, as an American journalist, he has a right to interview whomever he pleases. That's true, of course, and for the record, the U.S. isn't at war with Russia so there is no harm in it at this point.
The NSA responded in rare fashion, claiming that Carlson himself was never a target of a spying operation. The agency essentially explained that as a matter of its normal operations analysts monitor communications involving foreign leaders and especially those who could become adversaries, and thus, Carlson's emails were detected.
But that's a lie: Subsequent reporting notes that Carlson's name was "unmasked" -- that is, his identity was specifically revealed as being a party to monitored communications, which can only be done by request of the director of the NSA, which is U.S. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, whom Carlson mentioned during one of his segments explaining the spying.
The question is, why would Nakasone want Carlson's name unmasked? Because either he requested it, or Carlson's name was unmasked without his approval, which is against the law.
What's more, why was Carlson's name leaked to certain members of the left-wing media? That, too, is felonious behavior.
“For the NSA to unmask Tucker Carlson or any journalist attempting to secure a newsworthy interview is entirely unacceptable and raises serious questions about their activities as well as their original denial, which was wildly misleading," Fox News said in a statement after Carlson first reported being spied on.
The Washington Examiner noted further:
The identity of the official or officials who made the reported unmasking request remains unknown, but the report cites a former government official who speculated Carlson learned about the situation through an offer of a "defensive briefing" by the FBI against a potential foreign influence operation.
Republicans in Congress, including Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio and House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, have made information requests to the NSA as they investigate the matter.
They can request all the information they want; the NSA isn't going to tell Rubio and Nunes jack squat because the agency was never held to account for taking part in spying on the Trump campaign.
But that was the FBI, right? Yes...and not completely.
Understand that the U.S. national security apparatus is global. Our spooks, like those of some of our allies, may be forbidden to directly spy on their own citizens, but they get around that by utilizing intelligence-sharing agreements and arrangements like "Five Eyes" -- an intelligence-sharing collective consisting of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Also, the FBI reportedly accesses the NSA's databases all the time, and, no doubt, vice-versa. The information on anyone is available to these agencies at any time.
Finally, and this is key, there is no oversight from Congress.
There is such a wide partisan gulf between both parties that holding rogue agency officials to account is impossible. Plus, there is a genuine fear among those same lawmakers of our national security state.
You know what would take down the security state? Prosecuting just one of its top officials. That would do it.
But does anyone have the guts in D.C.? Tucker Carlson doesn't think so.
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