Tucker Carlson: My Emails Seeking Putin Interview Were Unmasked and Leaked By NSA
“The point, of course, was to paint me as a disloyal American; a Russian operative; a stooge of the Kremlin; a traitor doing the bidding of a foreign adversary.”
Last week, Tucker Carlson claimed that his emails were being monitored by the NSA and were being leaked to journalists. It was a stunning accusation that was met with skepticism by the liberal media.
Now he has confirmed this happened, and other media reports corroborate his claims.
Jonathan Swan reports at Axios:
Scoop: Tucker Carlson sought Putin interview at time of spying claim
Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him, sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios.
Why it matters: Those sources said U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview. Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach — and that’s the basis of his extraordinary accusation, followed by a rare public denial by the NSA that he had been targeted.
– Axios has not confirmed whether any communications from Carlson have been intercepted, and if so, why.
The big picture: Carlson’s charges instantly became a cause célèbre on the right, which feasted on the allegation that one of America’s most prominent conservatives might have been monitored by the U.S. intelligence community.
The unmasking aspect of the story is particularly noteworthy, as Ace of Spades points out:
The emails might have been surveilled “incidentally,” because Tucker was reaching out to US-based Russia representatives to get an interview with Putin.
You know — what journalists used to do.
But there is no innocent explanation for why Tucker Carlson’s name is included in the emails. Remember, in cases of so-called “incidental” collection of US citizens’ data, you’re supposed to “minimize” exposure of the person who was spied on by redacting him name and calling him something like US CITIZEN NO. 1.
This is also called “masking.”
Here, though, Tucker Carlson’s name is de-anonymized — “unmasked,” as Obama officials preferred it — and left right on the supposedly “incidentally” collected emails.
No effort is made to keep his identity anonymous. Quite the opposite.
Remember, even when someone’s emails are “incidentally” collected, their privacy has still been breached, and their constitutional rights have still been violated.
“Minimization”/anonymization/masking is supposed to be a compromise that mitigates the effects of that breach of constitutional rights.
Tucker addressed the issue on his show last night. Haley Strack of The Federalist provides a partial transcript:
“The NSA planned to link the contents of those emails to media outlets. Why would they do that?” Carlson asked rhetorically. “The point, of course, was to paint me as a disloyal American; a Russian operative; a stooge of the Kremlin; a traitor doing the bidding of a foreign adversary.”
To do so, according to Carlson, President Joe Biden’s NSA illegally unmasked the host and was planning to give the information to news organizations.
“By law, the NSA is required to keep secret the identities of American citizens who have been caught up in its vast domestic spying operations. So, by law, I should have been identified internally merely as a U.S. journalist, or American journalist. That’s the law,” Carlson said. “But that’s not how I was identified, I was identified by name. I was unmasked.”
Watch:
The people in charge now accused Trump of being a fascist. They were projecting.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Upon further review, I will conclude we are all under surveillance by the alphabet agencies in The Swamp.
But… but… Carlson’s a spy! He studied Russian history in college, ya know!!!
And Prof J actually went to Russia!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!! !!! ! He must be a Putin spy!
Hee!
Those gargoyles who have usurped power and taken over the U.S. government are far worse enemies than Russia is or ever was. I’m daring anyone to name a worse enemy than this group of greedy and vicious turncoats: the oval office, the halls of representatives and congress-criters, along with the supremes, MSM, the unions, and even the military are all working for the demise of our once incomparable country.
Tucker Carlson is a shining example of a true Patriot. There are grave concerns over his safety, along with the other Patriots standing against this mob. Look what was done to Breitbart and others who stood up for what was right!
Along with Carlton, Patriotic Citizens are ALL in danger. No one can fathom the Hell Hole awaiting us if these creeps prevail.`
I suspect Carlson strongly suspected he was being politically monitored and made the request to interview Putin in a deliberate attempt to flush out and verify this illegal unmasking. It’s a classic intelligence ploy – insert something innocuous but reportable and wait to see it turns up. Then you know you are compromised and can figure out how.
This had the added benefit of if the IC did not show its hand, then he possibly could end up with an interview with Putin, so it was a no-lose course of action.
It’s possible that Tucker was “unmasked” after his emails were collected “incidentally?”
It is equally plausible that that’s the cover story the administration wants you to believe, when he really was targeted just as he initially claimed.
Either way, his rights have been intentionally violated.
Either way, his rights have been intentionally violated.
BWAHAHAHAHA . . . snicker . . . snort . . .
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
The only right the subjects of the United States has is the right to STFU and do as your told by your betters. And if you get in their way then heaven help you. Nobody else will.
Based on my limited but applicable experience, you’re not wrong.
“It’s possible that Tucker was “unmasked” after his emails were collected “incidentally?”
The excuse for the legality of the collection is that it was incidental. There is no legal rationale for the unmasking since having a reporter ask someone for an interview is on no way illegal and therefore there should have been no unmasking. The reported should have simply said “US Person” and ended there. They also should not have been jumping off Carlson for his downstream contacts, which I would not be surprised to see they are also doing, that is, who Carlson communicates with, and who all those people communicate with.
If Carlson has not engaged in illegal activity during these communications, this unmasking and monitoring is both illegal and sinister.
Gargoyles…..heh heh!
Good explanation
Anything “Russia” is a distraction of the real problem….China
Unmasking is illegal but sounds low-level staffer; not a policy issue but a crime issue for that staffer.
The rest is legal.
I am sorry, but the NSA, the FBI, and the IRS have now been weaponized against US citizens because they “believe the wrong thing”. That is the definition of tyranny.
You’re just saying it’s a high-level thing, not a staffer thing. I don’t think it is high-level.
At a minimum a higher level policy of permitting lower level people to do this stuff is a higher level policy.
Total crap. They never seem to make any “human error” when it comes to leaving something unredacted in your FOIA request.
No low level staffer is going to do something that, legally, should land them in jail. These are bureaucrats. The thing they are best at is covering their behinds against anything. That’s how you survive in that field.
If I recall correctly, unmasking requests must be made in writing, there is supposed to be a record kept of these requests and the “national security” reason given, and the people able to make the requests are limited in number. (Remember the thousands of requests that “susan rice” supposedly made in 2016?) If the government really wanted to get to the bottom of this, they could of course.
But that will never happen. Just like the felony committed by leaking Michael Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak….Flynn was viciously prosecuted for years for doing nothing wrong. As far as I know, no serious legal efforts were made to find out who the leaker was.
Yes, they would do well to prosecute the staffer. Bad for them if they don’t.
” people able to make the requests are limited in number. ”
This is not accurate. The people who can approve such a request are limited in number. People with data access can make a request, and that number is rather large and limited by clearance and access.
There is a very short list of people who authorized and had access to Tucker’s emails. It should be very easy for the NSA to identify who leaked the information… if they are even remotely concerned with upholding the rule of law.
There SHOULD be. But exactly as happened last time they pulled this bullshit, they cover their asses by ensuring that a large number of people had access to the leaked material – far too many (they claim) to trace who actually leaked it.
Exactly as their bullshit with ‘oh he wasn’t a TARGET’ was laughably see-through, their crap as to why they can’t find the leak is laughably predictable.
So you are saying a “low level staffer” decided to not just unmask Carlson but reach out to the press and handout the emails…that’s what you believe?
The “human error” excuse again? Bite me, NSA.
There’s no reason to monitor Tucker Carlson. He already says what he thinks on his national show.
Like there’d be no reason to monitor me. I already say everything publically.
The reason to monito him to (1) get ahead of what he is investigating so that information channels can be closed and whistle-blowers removed from information access or intimidated, (2) discover his information network to see what they are investigating for the same purpose, (3) attempt to find embarrassing or illegal activity to silence Carlson and/or members of his information network and associates to either silence them or turn them into swamp resources.
And when I say illegal, these days, it does not need to be anything big and quite subject to interpretation to justify sending a SWAT team, helicopters, and armored vehicles on a no-knock raid in the dead of night to arrest an middle-aged man with no criminal history with the hope that he does something ambiguous with his hands during the course of that raid .But if that does not work, then the two years of solitary confinement, for his own protection, will help greatly with eliciting a guilty plea and “cooperation” to tell stories about other people.
Bought any Lego sets recently?
Exactly as he said would happen, and EXACTLY as predicted from the NSA’s lawyerly, too-cute word game bullshit ‘denial’ telegraphed.
I eagerly await the resident liberal kool-aid drinker to show up, having shamelessly from “THE NSA DENIED THEY DID IT SO IT DIDNT HAPPEN’, to ‘WELL I’M SURE HE DESERVED TO GET SPIED ON THEN’.
Liberals are nothing if not pathetically predictable.
He will still say the NSA denied it and Carlson is self-promoting snake. And when the NSA or Democrats writes a butt-covering report, he will point to that as proof that nothing happened, or that it was all legit, etc.
Is it now a crime for an American journalist to ask the president of Russia for an interview? If not a crime, then how does the NSA justify spying on Tucker?
It doesn’t have to. They just do it.
The NSA wanted to eavesdrop on any conversation and all electronic communications Tucker planned on having with Putin, because that is what spies do.
They justify it with their bullshit word games about him not being a ‘target’.
I predicted exactly this when this first broke a week ago.
The scumbags at the DNC decide they want to read somebody’s communications. So FIRST they find out literally anybody outside the country they are in communication with – in this case, the Russian representative Tucker was communicating with.
Then they designate their contact a ‘critical intelligence target (nobody EVER has to answer for mis-labeling somebody an intelligence target, btw). Depending on the designation, this gets them zero steps, one step, or two steps – a step being the layers of removal people that they then are allowed to read ALL of their communications, without further warrants. If they got a one step warrant, they are then allowed to read LITERALLY ALL of Tucker’s communications.
That’s how this bullshit works.
Oh, and when they know they’re going to leak stuff, they pre-emptively spread the information they know they’re going to leak around a a couple hundred people to ensure that they will never be able to ‘prove’ who leaked it.
This is what happens when the RINOs refused to lift a fucking finger after the FISA abuse.
The NSA never denied targeting Carlson directly.
Don’t be like our resident marxist trolls. Read and comprehend the NSA’s non-denial one more time.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nsa-denies-spying-fox-news-host-tucker-carlson-n1272690
“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.”
Not only did the NSA never deny reading Carlson’s emails, they never denied he was a target. They simply denied he was an intel target. Which leaves open the likelihood they did target Carlson directly. But not for intelligence purposes.
Which is of course illegal, since the NSA can only legally target any U.S. person for intelligence purposes. Note I said U.S. person, not U.S. citizen. From the Axios article.
https://www.axios.com/tucker-carlson-putin-interview-surveillance-c9952d7c-33d7-45e9-be68-2ba4c3817f98.html
“Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries…”
We don’t know who these “U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries” are. They could be U.S. citizens. They could be green card holders. They could be in the country on non-immigrant visas, such as work visas. In any case, Carlson wasn’t talking to anyone outside the country. But since we don’t know the legal status of the people Carlson was talking with about arranging an interview, it is probable that the NSA couldn’t have collected Carlson’s electronic communications incidental to authorized surveillance. Not if the person on the other end of Carlson’s interview negotiations couldn’t have been legally targeted either.
The fact is it isn’t like Carlson was emailing Moscow.
This is more illegal than you can imagine. This is corrupt to the core. But then NSA personnel routinely do engage routinely in illegal, corrupt activities such as suspicious NSA analysts coopting the surveillance assets of the agency to try and find out if their spouses are having affairs. Or illegally surveilling people to pursue personal vendettas.
This is exactly the kind of thing the NSA would do.
That’s bullshit, TCs original claim was quoted back to him and said to be untrue. Reading his emails was TCs follow up claim in other words he moved the goalposts. In actual fact from my reading it’s clear that it’s an unprovable claim from anyone. Given that any records accidentally caught by the NSA cannot be searched for without proper authority.
https://www.justsecurity.org/77299/the-tucker-carlson-disinformation-show/
No, YOU are bullshit. Enough people have told you specifically how the NSA tried to weasel away from answering his claims by claiming he wasn’t a ‘target’, which is a VERY SPECIFIC LEGAL TERM, and something that WAS NOT CLAIMED.
At this point there is no other explanation other than the fact that you are simply a deliberate liar.
This is a blog of lawyers. Don’t try and tell lawyers that words mean things other than what they actually mean, troll.
And I pointed out that the NSA quotes the claim back at him and explicitly stated it was true. There is a great just security article that I’ve linked to in this thread on that respect. It’s complete bollocks.
Oh and the term intelligence target just means to monitor in this context. If you think there is a legal definition provide it.
Well it’s a legal blog but quite clear there is a range of views and qualifications from those commenting.
” Given that any records accidentally caught by the NSA cannot be searched for without proper authority.”
Records certainly can be searched without proper authority, and have. This is clearly documented in court filings and findings. And as mentioned many times hear, the NSA only denied Carlson was an intelligence target, not that he is being improperly targeted or illegally unmasked.
@BSR
NO learn to read, the NSA read back the allegations and explicitly said it wasn’t true. The entire point of the authority thing is that the NSA cannot tell TC whether or not he has had communications picked up as part of looking at other actors for example because doing that would be illegal! You don’t get to cherry pick part of the statement.
Anything that comes out of the left’s mouth is always “projection.”
I’m looking forward to Markyboys excuses for why this is OK 🤣🤣
Or that other little fuck Zach (sock puppet of Marks? Or someone as they surely have someone’s hand up their arse 🤣).
But you already know that know one will pay for this breach. Democrats don’t even give a fuck about hiding this kind of shit any more.
As Barry said, elections have consequences and boy that last one sure dies have some MASSIVE fucking consequences for everyone! The fucking fucks don’t even try to hide their hatred for you now.
Back when Russia was a super power instead of an over glorified Canada with a large army (Do you consider Canada a super power?) it was considered vital and incredibly wise for Nixon to go to China and detach China from Russia.
Today with China being a super power and Russia…..it is considered vital to alienate Russia as much as possible, saber rattle and wage economic warfare against Russia to make sure that all of the legacy of Soviet Russia’s impressive tech progression goes to helping China eclipse us.
Nixon understood diplomacy, the modern intelligentsia including Joe Biden do not.
If Canada was a superhero, it would be Pariah.
I’m confused didn’t Chris Wallace interview Putin a couple of years ago? Doesn’t really add up that the NSA would be interested in Tucker doing an interview with Putin. Whole thing is so odd.
Wow. You are a real piece of work. Yeah, it’s ‘odd’ that a bunch of rabid partisan hacks would do EXACTLY what we said they were doing – abuse the process to spy on their political opponents.
They spied on and illegally leaked his communications to try and make a political opponent look bad.
And the most you can muster is that it’s ‘odd’.
You are a joke.
With all due respect all we have is TCs word. Given his history of talking absolute shite forgive me for being skeptical. Nor do I see how pointing out why spying on TV for this purpose makes zero sense. I’m also not clear how you’ve concluded that there is a political element at all. Are you perhaps judging others by Trumps standards, that’s doesn’t seem reasonable in light of zero evidence. I tend to reserve making judgement on any situation in the absence of actual evidence or credible testimony. You might want to consider the same. It might improve your credibility.
AHAHAHA. I am literally laughing at you right now. Yeah, we’re the ones that need to ‘improve credibility’.
You are such a partisan hack it’s beyond comical.
Sure, there’s no evidence of anything. Except, you know, for the fact that his emails are now public, leaked in EXACTLY the way he said they were going to do. And to actually try and claim that there’s no ‘political element’ to leaking the communications of a conservative journalist? The “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” defense. It’s a classic!
But yep. Just as predicted, talking points received and regurgitated.
You have literally no idea how hilarious your rabid partisanship is to the people here, do you?
And the fact that you’d now try to lecture somebody on ‘credibility’ is just /chefkiss
@ollinser
Except those emails aren’t actually in the public domain. The claim is that the NSA were going to leak them not that they actually have. Please do provide the link to the emails to show I’m wrong about that. The reports so far suggest the claim is specifically that they have been leaked to an as yet unidentified journalist.
As for your political claim. Do you have any evidence to back that up. Last I checked it was the Trump administration who got caught (ya know with actual evidence) spying on Democrats including journalists.
Fortunately ollinser I don’t particularly care for your insults or the insults of others. It’s not meaningful.
@commochief
Oh absolutely past administration’s including Trump and obama had contemptible records with regard to spying on journalists. I just need more than Tucker Carlson’s word, which isn’t worth anything. That’s my issue.
Benefit from lying .. hmm well it’s more the case that I’m not willing to condemn anyone without evidence. That’s the distinction.
Mark,
His word, supported by the past practices of the NSA and the IC. The sad part is, this isn’t unusual, it is common place.
If the NSA and IC had never before been caught doing this sort of thing then I would be more willing to support your view. Unfortunately the record of the NSA and IC doesn’t allow us to give them the benefit of the doubt.
At root, we are talking about human beings. Frail and weak. Easily led astray. The folks with access to sensitive data want to use that access to inflate their ego. The IRS has folks looking at and passing around tax returns to celebrity figures.
Given all that and TC putting his credibility and professional future on the line in making the claim, what’s to be gained by lying? The risk reward ratio for falsifying a claim that the ‘NSA read his email’ is too high, IMO.
mark, I’m curious. How dense do you intend to be? Carlson never claimed that the NSA would be passing out copies of his actual emails to the hostile leftist press. He said the whistle blower told him the NSA would leak the contents of the emails. Which is what they’ve done. He’s confirmed that the information is correct, and that no one could have know what was in those emails unless they were reading them.
And that the NSA is attempting to smear him as a Putin stooge via friendly lefty MFM outlets. It’s the Russia collusion hoax v2.0.
When Chris Wallace talks to Putin that’s fine. He’s a Biden supporter. When Carlson interviews Putin he’s a traitor because he’s not a Biden supporter.
But you go ahead and be deliberately obtuse. As Napoleon is supposed to have said, never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Demonstrate that you’re nothing more than a partisan hack. And not a very skilled one.
A six year old can understand what’s going on here. You try to spin this away and we’ll all have a good laugh at the unintentional comedy you’re going to provide.
The comment went to the end for some reason. See below randians comment.
Very weird the comment i made disappeared.
Anyways rather than rehash my previous comment I’m going to ask you a real simple question. Why do you take TC’s comments as fact. That’s is to say he hasn’t actually presented any evidence, nor has it been collaborated nor is he a reliable actor. That’s in light of his legal defence of previous outright lies being ‘no one should take him seriously’. He just isn’t credible so why are you taking what he says seriously?
He’s way more accurate than you are, mark.
He’s been in the business a lot longer.
People actually pay him for his erudition and insight, not for his nuisance value.
Oh Henry now you are being silly, Tucker gets paid because he tells stories to children and they happen to really like those stories. Calling Tucker Carlson a journalist would require him to take responsibility for the things he says and whether or not they are actually true.
TC is merely asserting that all these things are happening, no evidence no collaboration. On the other hand as you conveniently ignore his legal defence against certain lawsuits has been ‘no one has or should take this man seriously’; that defence even worked! He isn’t a journalist he is a story teller so the question becomes why care about what he says. In my case I don’t in your case it seems to be to take a fucking liar at his word; not everyone is as gullible as you are.
Glad to now know mark311 isn’t American. It wasn’t clear before.
He claims to be an American expat of some sort. Like Axis Sally.
How dare you compare me to that person. The idea that when someone has different views to you qualifies them to be someone like that is pretty disgusting. It seems to me that as usual you have nothing. You are an empty shell with no fucking integrity.
You really twisted Sally’s knickers with that one, h.b..
The Dems/Marxists are picking right up where they left off at the end of Comrade Chairman Obama’s rule.
They got away with spying on Trump and his campaign and admin. They got away with railroading Flynn. They got away with using the FBI, NSA, and CIA against their political opponents.
Now that they are back in power they emboldened and going for broke.