McCarthy Asks Devin Nunes to Investigate Claim of NSA Spying against Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson at the 2018 Student Action Summit (Gage Skidmore)

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) has asked Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) to investigate Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s claim that the National Security Agency spied on him.

McCarthy cited other examples of what he termed a “disturbing trend” at the NSA that led him to call for an investigation.

McCarthy noted the “sidelining” of Michael Ellis, appointed by former President Trump as NSA general counsel before resigning in April. Ellis was placed on administrative leave the day he was set to take office, and remained so “for nearly three months without any explanation or updates,” Ellis said when announcing his resignation.

McCarthy also alleged that the NSA “has refused to deliver information requested by the Republican Members on the House Intelligence Committee who are trying to fulfill their oversight responsibilities.”

“Now, there is a public report that NSA read the emails of Fox News host Tucker Carlson,” McCarthy said. “Although NSA publicly denied targeting Carlson, I have serious questions regarding this matter that must be answered.”

McCarthy requested that Nunes, the ranking Republican on the Intelligence Committee, investigate the incidents. Ellis served as Nunes’s general counsel before joining the Trump administration in 2017.

During his show on Monday night, Carlson claimed that a government whistleblower told his team that the NSA was “spying” on their personal communications and “planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.” Carlson did not offer evidence for the claim.

“On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged the National Security Agency has been ‘monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.’ This allegation is untrue,” the agency said in a statement on Tuesday. “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.”

Send a tip to the news team at NR.

Zachary Evans is a news writer for National Review Online. He is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces and a trained violist.