Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday called for an investigation into Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s claims that the National Security Agency has been spying on him.
The NSA denied the claims on Tuesday.
“The most-watched cable news host has been stating for the last several nights that the NSA has been monitoring his communications and amazingly, the NSA has issued a statement that is so couched it is functionally an admission,” the Florida lawmaker said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
He said, “It’s not like the NSA’s never lied to us. We were told that there was no bulk collection of Americans’ data. It turns out there was bulk collection of Americans’ data and no one ever was held to account for that.” Gaetz added, “We cannot count on these people to police themselves.”
He called for an “Inspector General investigation into any monitoring that the NSA or any other element of the intelligence community is engaged relevant to Tucker Carlson.”
Reached for comment, a Fox News spokesperson pointed to Carlson’s on-air comments from Tuesday night.
Just after the NSA released its statement denying that Carlson has ever been a target of investigation, the Fox News host flamed the agency on-air, calling the comments “dishonest.” Carlson said he thought the agency was lying when it refuted his unsubstantiated claims that it was monitoring his communications and emails.
“The NSA sent us an infuriatingly dishonest formal statement, an entire paragraph of lies written purely for the benefit of the intel community’s lackeys at CNN and MSNBC, all those people they hire with the titles on the screen,” Carlson said.
Watch video of Gaetz calling for the investigation above.
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