Tucker Carlson erupted with 'spying' claims shortly after he tried using 'Kremlin intermediaries' to score Putin interview: report

Fox News host Tucker Carlson's claims that the American government illegally spied on him reportedly came shortly after he reached out to "Kremlin intermediaries" living in the United States to help him score an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Axios's Jonathan Swan reports that Carlson's attempts to interview Putin came under US officials' radar, although it's not clear how they found out about it.

"On Wednesday, Carlson told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business that only his executive producer knew about the communications in question and that he didn't mention it to anybody else, including his wife," notes Swan. "But, of course, the recipients of Carlson's texts and emails also knew about their content. And we don't know how widely they shared this information."

Even though Carlson was working with Kremlin intermediaries, he insisted to Swan that he was illegally spied upon.

However, intelligence experts who spoke with Swan say that "a more plausible scenario is that one of the people Carlson was talking to as an intermediary to help him get the Putin interview was under surveillance as a foreign agent."

Read the full report here.