Tucker Carlson blasts ‘dishonest’ NSA after agency denies his spy claim

The National Security Agency (NSA) issued a rare public statement Tuesday denying claims by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the department had been monitoring his communications in a bid to get his top-rated show taken off the air.

“This allegation is untrue,” read the unsigned statement posted on the NSA’s Twitter account. “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. “NSA has a foreign intelligence mission,” the statement continued. “We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.”