Tucker Carlson, the 56-year-old conservative media personality and former Fox News host, has publicly alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been monitoring his private text messages and is preparing a criminal referral against him to the Department of Justice.
Carlson made the allegations in a five-minute video posted to X, accompanied by a written statement.
“When you discover the CIA has been reading your texts in order to frame you for a crime,” he wrote in the post.
In the video, Carlson stated directly: “The CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice, on the basis of a supposed crime I committed.”
The alleged crime, according to Carlson, centers on communications he had with individuals in Iran prior to the onset of war.
“What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts,” he said.
Carlson pointed to the Foreign Agents Registration Act as the legal mechanism potentially being used against him.
The law requires individuals who are paid by foreign governments to engage in political advocacy to register with the Justice Department.
Despite the serious nature of the allegations, Carlson stated he is not concerned about facing charges. He expressed doubt that any formal case would materialize.
“I’m not an agent of a foreign power. Unlike a lot of people commenting on US politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty and that’s the United States,” Carlson said in the video.
He further addressed the financial component of the law, stating he has never accepted money from a foreign nation. “Don’t need it, don’t want it,” he added.
Carlson characterized his communications with foreign nationals as a routine part of his professional work.
“It’s literally what I do for a living, and I’m not gonna stop that,” he said. “Legally, I think the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it’ll even become a case.”
Carlson also suggested his public criticism of Israel may have contributed to making him a target.
“[There are] some people who are mad at me for my views about Israel and they have some latitude,” he said.
He alleged that criminal referrals of this nature are used to justify surveillance warrants on American citizens.
“One of the reasons they pass on criminal complaints in effect to law enforcement is to justify warrants for spying on Americans,” Carlson stated.
Carlson further alleged that investigations like this one are launched to ‘”leak the investigation” to the media’ and to ‘humiliate and terrorize the “subject of the operation.”‘
He drew a parallel to a 2021 incident in which he alleged the NSA intercepted his text messages with another American citizen while he was at Fox News attempting to arrange an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He claimed those messages were subsequently leaked to news outlets in an effort to derail the interview.
Carlson stated his reason for going public was not personal grievance. “I’m not making this video to complain about it, or whine, or ask for money… I’m saying it because it’s true, and you should know what your own government is doing,” he said.
He also offered a broader commentary on the relationship between war and civil liberties.
“It’s just the nature of war, people are dying, the stakes are high,” Carlson said. “There’s much less tolerance for any kind of dissent in the homeland.”
WATCH:
The allegations come amid a public falling out between Carlson and President Donald Trump.
Carlson called Trump’s strikes on Iran “absolutely disgusting and evil” in an interview with ABC News.
Trump responded sharply. “Tucker’s lost his way. I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that,” Trump told ABC News on March 5.
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