For the past couple of weeks, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been engaged in a verbal war of sorts with the US Intelligence Community (IC). First, Carlson alleged that he had received a tip from an IC whistleblower telling him his text messages were being read and, as shown of bona fides, told Carlson what was on one or more of those messages, see Tucker Carlson’s Spying Claim Matches What We Know About an out of Control Intelligence Community. Then, the National Security Agency (NSA) responded in the most unconvincing manner you can imagine; in fact, the denial sounded oddly like an admission of guilt that was relying on legalese to avoid admitting the truth, see The NSA Response to Tucker Carlson’s Allegations Shows They Are Hiding Something.

Earlier this week, Carlson upped the ante by claiming that a member of the Washington media had given him a copy of one or more of his own emails leaked to this person by the IC. The NSA didn’t deny this story; they just referred to their previous non-denial denial. However, that wasn’t the end of the story. The NSA approached Jonathan Swan of Axios and tried to spin circumstances under which eavesdropping on Carlson would be permissible. They offered that he was talking to Russians about arranging an interview with Vladimir Putin, which might be the reason. The left lapped up this spittle in their usual voracious manner, but the explanation still did not explain a) the unmasking of Carlson or b) the shopping of his personal emails to reporters. My story on this is Tucker Carlson Makes New Allegations of NSA Misconduct and the Intelligence Community Begins Damage Control.

Tonight we entered a different phase. Two of the more despicable talking heads on cable, Frank Figliuzzi and Andrew Weissman, were on MSNBC’s “Deadline” program…emphasis on “dead”…and discussing this story.

There are a couple of notable things here. First, Figliuzzi doesn’t deny that Carlson was eavesdropped on. His spin is that Carlson knew he talked to a Russian agent and wanted to get out in front of the revelation. He elides right over the fact that a) talking to a Russian agent is not a crime unless you are committing another crime and b) even if Carlson were talking to a Russian intelligence operative, his name would still be masked as he is a US Person and his personal communications would not be circulated about DC. We are never told why Carlson would have to get in front of a revelation that would have been based on a private phone call and leaked illegally.

Andrew Weissmann, James Comey’s deputy during the Special Counsel travesty, then weighs in. He acknowledges that Carlson was probably under “incidental” surveillance because of his outreach to Putin’s staff…by the way, the source for the story that Carlson was trying to reach out to Putin for an interview is from the leak to Axios, not from Carlson…and, at 4:55, he says Carlson going public with the complaint rather than dealing privately with the Justice Department is “anti-American.”

Consider that for a moment. The guy who destroyed the accounting giant Arthur Andersen and put 20,000+ people out of work before he suffered the ignominy of being unanimously reversed by the US Supreme Court. is accusing Tucker Carlson of being anti-American. The guy who used his position on the special counsel to carry out a personal jihad against Paul Manafort is calling Tucker Carlson anti-American. The cretinous genius behind indicting a group of Russian companies for meddling in the 2016 election and then getting his ass handed to him in grand style is calling Tucker Carlson anti-American.

What is obvious from this is that no one, even the imbeciles on MSNBC, is denying that Carlson’s communications were intercepted. What they can’t explain is how those communications were made available to people outside the IC with Carlson’s name attached to them. The reason they can’t explain that is that this sequence of events is only possible if someone decided to unmask Carlson after he was swept up in legal surveillance and illegally distribute his communications…or if Carlson is under surveillance by the US government. Serious journalists, if we had any in this nation, would be trying to find out.