Right-wing media commentator Tucker Carlson claims President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice could be building a criminal case against him.
In a clip shared Saturday evening on X, Carlson said the CIA is “preparing some kind of criminal referral” against him to the Justice Department “on the basis of a supposed crime.” The former Fox News host claimed investigators had read his text messages and that the supposed probe relates to “talking to people in Iran before the war.”
“The crime under consideration, apparently, would be the foreign agent act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power,” he said.
Carlson may be referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires that “certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute” make regular disclosures about their work, according to the Justice Department.
The podcaster did not appear to provide evidence for his claims. The Independent has requested comment from the Justice Department and CIA.
Carlson said he’s “not too worried about an actual criminal case” for a number of reasons, including that he’s “not an agent of a foreign power” and has “never taken money from anybody.”
“It’s my job to talk to everybody all the time and try and figure out what’s happening around the world. That’s literally what I do for a living, and I’m not going to stop doing that, nor should I, I don’t think,” he said.
“I’m also an American. I can talk to anybody. I have no secrets to divulge. So, legally, I think the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it’ll even become a case,” he continued.
The popular conservative media personality, who hosts The Tucker Carlson Show podcast, has recently criticized the president over his war with Iran, including condemning the military campaign as “absolutely disgusting and evil” in a statement to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl late last month, just hours after the attacks began.
The president slammed Carlson days later during an interview with Karl.
“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump said. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again.”
“MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that,” he added.
Carlson’s opposition likely came as no surprise. According to The New York Times, he expressed his opposition to the war over the course of three Oval Office meetings with Trump in the weeks leading up to the military campaign, which launched February 28.
The podcaster was also outspoken about the previous strikes against Iran in June 2025, when Trump announced that U.S. forces had “completely, totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in a series of missile strikes and bombings.
Around that same time, Carlson went viral for an interview with Republican Senator Ted Cruz, during which he accused the lawmaker of not knowing enough about Iran to comment on the conflict.
