Intelligence agencies have creative ways of forcing politicians to do their bidding, the conservative journalist claimed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of Congress consistently vote in favor of mass surveillance programs because they\u2019re \u201cterrified\u201d that intelligence agencies will plant \u201ckiddie porn\u201d on their computers if they speak up, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carlson appeared on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast on Friday, hours before the US Senate voted to renew Section 702 of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Ostensibly created to allow intelligence agencies such as the FBI and CIA to surveil the communications of foreigners, Section 702 allows these agencies to access data \u2018indirectly\u2019 collected from millions of American citizens without a warrant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Carlson, a number of lawmakers actually opposed this renewal, but did not admit this publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t say that because they\u2019re worried about being punished,\u201d Carlson told Rogan. \u201cThey\u2019re worried about someone putting kiddie porn on their computer. Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I\u2019m not guessing at that. They\u2019ve told me that, including people on the [intelligence] committee, including people who run the intel committee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re afraid of the agencies,\u201d he stated, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s not compatible with democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s playing out in front of everyone, and no one cares and no one does anything about it,\u201d Carlson continued. \u201cI think the reason is because they\u2019re threatened. And if you look at the committee chairmen who allowed this s**t to happen year after year\u2026 I know them. And they have all the things to hide. I know that for a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apart from the supposed threat of surreptitiously-planted child pornography, Carlson claimed that it\u2019s \u201cvery common\u201d for lawmakers to have \u201ca drinking problem or a weird sex life,\u201d which agencies could easily expose if these politicians refuse to do their bidding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carlson is not the first influential conservative to claim that elected representatives are being blackmailed. Back in December, Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, a Republican, suggested that his colleagues opposed a motion to release the names of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s clients because they would have been implicated in sex crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unnamed forces in Washington use \u201cthe old honey pot\u201d to blackmail politicians and force them to \u201cvote for crazy stuff,\u201d he told<\/a> conservative podcast host Benny Johnson at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A year earlier, a nude video of Rep. Madison Cawthorn was leaked a month after he claimed to have been invited to drug-fueled orgies by older members of Congress. Washington, he said at the time, is rife with \u201csexual perversion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n