Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and James Comer of Kentucky joined Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s call for an independent inspector general investigation into allegations that the National Security Agency obtained Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s personal communications.
“Mr. Carlson’s disclosures about the NSA’s actions are serious, and the NSA’s elusive response demands further inquiry. We ask that the OIG immediately review whether the NSA collected, possessed, or obtained Mr. Carlson’s electronic communications and report to the Committee about this matter,” the three Republicans wrote in a letter to NSA Inspector General Robert P. Storch on Thursday, first obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Gaetz first called for an inspector general investigation into Carlson’s claims at a Wednesday House Judiciary Committee hearing. The addition of Jordan, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Comer, the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, in a request to the NSA’s inspector general adds more weight and formality to the request, though it is still likely that it will be ignored.
NSA DENIES LEAKING SCHEME TO TAKE TUCKER CARLSON OFF THE AIR
The letter follows House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday directing Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, led by ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes of California, to investigate the NSA. Carlson’s claims add to McCarthy’s concerns about “undue political influence,” he said, including the “sidelining of Michael Ellis as NSA General Counsel” and its refusal to deliver information to Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee.
On his television show on Monday, Carlson said that a government whistleblower within the NSA alerted his team to the fact that the agency is “spying” on their electronic communications and is “planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.” According to Carlson, the person provided his own personal electronic communications about a story as proof.
The NSA released a statement on Tuesday denying a scheme to monitor Carlson as part of a plot to take his show off the air.
“This allegation is untrue,” the NSA statement read. “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.”
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Jordan, Comer, and Gaetz called the NSA’s statement “carefully worded,” arguing that the agency “did not deny that it had collected Mr. Carlson’s communications without targeting him.”
They asked that the NSA inspector general conduct a review in an unclassified manner to the greatest extent possible.
