US spooks tipped off The New York Times about the plans then people started calling with questions, the media personality said

The American intelligence community had the assistance of The New York Times in an apparent bid to stop Tucker Carlson from interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin, the conservative political commenter has claimed.

The former Fox News host explained on Tuesday why he believes he had been spied-on before meeting the Russian leader earlier this month, when he discussed his experience in Moscow with Blaze TV founder Glenn Beck.

Carlson recalled how, years ago, the US government learned about his attempts to organize an interview with Putin and leaked it to the press. In the years since, he said, he has learned how one can “communicate outside the view of state actors.”

The Russian government granted him the sit-down with Putin on a strict condition that plans for the interview would not become public or the entire thing would be called off, the journalist told Beck. Nevertheless, he and a friend of his were then called by New York Times reporters asking when his Putin interview will happen.

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”There’s no way they could have known that. I didn’t tell anybody: my wife, my producers, not even my kids,” he said. “They clearly did it again. They leaked it to The New York Times in an effort to scuttle the interview.”

The original claims by Carlson that the US government was working behind closed doors to stop him from interviewing Putin came in 2021. He said a source cited to him his private communications related to the effort to organize one.

Carlson suggested that the US National Security Agency (NSA) must have spied on him. The agency responded with a rare public denial, stating that, for the NSA, he “has never been an intelligence target.”

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A scoop by Axios news website cited unnamed US officials as confirming that the government had learned about the media figure’s intentions. The outlet suggested that “US-based Kremlin intermediaries” whom he had contacted were the source of the leak.