Transcript
A (0:02)
Get ready to take a flamethrower to the official narrative and learn what the elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show.
B (0:18)
Hey everybody, Tom woods here. It's episode 2744 of the Tom Woods Show. The great Robert Barnes, the only constitutional lawyer you ever want to hear from, is here with us. He is the founder of the 1776,
A (0:30)
what is it called, 1776 Law Center.
B (0:33)
Law center. I couldn't think of it because I was thinking Southern Poverty Law center and I thought it can't be the same words. But maybe you're using the same words to try to indicate that maybe in some senses your kind of answer to some of these terrible people out there. But you are the guy I want to listen to on all these kinds of questions. And today we got to deal with this craziness that may turn out to be nothing. It's, it may turn out to be a so called nothing burger. But even if it does, it still matters because the way people reacted to the story, if indeed it turns out there is one, and that is this matter of Tucker Carlson evidently having been in contact with Iran in a way that would be described as treasonous because the US Is at, well, war or not, is at something with Iran at the moment. And to see the way that Tucker's enemies were gleefully pouncing that he's going to wind up behind bars. Laura Loomer, I do not would not want her as an ally. If I found out she was my ally, I would say to her, I really just don't want you around. I don't want you associated with my name. But not everybody's like me. And she was boasting that she has helped push this case against Tucker forward and that she hopes that he winds up in prison. So I thought we have to talk about this. So the question of whether there really is any real case against Tucker formally being put together is very much in question. I'll get back to that later. But if there were to be one, what, according to what we've heard so far, is it likely to consist of?
A (2:04)
Basically what Tucker reported is that CIA was spying on his text and intercepting his communications with the various people in Iran when he was trying to set up an interview with the president of Iran back in the summer of 2025. The only plausible allegations you could make would be something like a FARA violation for an Agent's Registration Act. And there's no evidence that that's the case here. Now, the first Problem with story Tucker was told is that the CIA has no statutory, constitutional or other right to spy or intercept any communication of an American. The CIA's own charter prohibits and precludes. Sometimes people see this in TV shows and movies reference. But it is in fact legally correct in this instance, the TV shows and movies. The CIA has no power to spy on people inside the United States territory who are themselves United States citizens. So the NSA has that power through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But if they're going to target an American, if they're going to unmask who the communication is to, they also have to go through and get court approval through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is appointed by Chief Justice Roberts. Now, both of these, of course, have been controversial in recent times because General Flynn was one of the very few people ever prosecuted under far and a very misuse and abuse of prosecutorial power by Robert Mueller's crew in Trump's first term. And of course, the FISA abuse was part of what led to Spygate, which was part of the whole Russiagate scandal in the first term of the President's administration, which Tulsi Gabbard has already outed and is part subject to a criminal referral being made to the Southern District of Florida to look into people like John Brennan and a range of others connected to him concerning their legal behavior. So the question is, is the CIA doing it? Again, if the CIA did in fact spy or intercept on these communications, then they have violated the constitutional rights of Tucker Carlson and have acted outside their statutory authority and themselves committed crimes. So I have doubts about the story that Tucker was told that the CIA would make a criminal referral to the Justice Department because they're criminal. But who knows, they may be that dumb because such a criminal referral would be an admission and acknowledgement of their own criminality, not of anything Tucker did. For those that are concerned, hey, does the Foreign Agents Registration act restrict my First Amendment speech rights here in the United States? Of course, no statute can overturn the Constitution of the United States. So first answer is no. Second is so that you have to interpret that law in light of the First Amendment and the way in which it's been interpreted. And it only applies if you're really not speaking for yourself, but you're speaking as an agent of somebody else. And that agent is a foreign principle who you are acting under the control or supervision of. So most common, most ordinary people deal with the concept of agency in the principle of their employment. When is somebody my agent? When am I somebody else's? Agent. Think about those principles. Am I acting on my behalf? Am I acting on somebody else's behalf? If you're not acting on somebody else's behalf and that somebody else isn't a foreign principle anyway, then you're not subject to fara. Even then, the FARA law itself says if you're involved in scientific work, academic work, literary work, artistic work, or journalistic work, you are entirely excluded and exempt from FARA in the first place. So if you're a journalist engaged in news gathering, you're not covered under the FARA laws. So this means that there's nothing that Tucker did in trying to get an interview with the Iranian president that could even possibly be a violation of the law, least of all something that could be constitutionally upheld as a plausible indictment. But what it does suggest is a pattern of harassment that is likely to escalate in the context of war, as we've seen in America and like around the world. Like what happened during COVID Once the war machine gets rolling, censorship and prosecution of people for politicized reasons soon follows it. So that's what's really likely behind the scenes is an effort to intimidate not just Tucker, but everybody else. You better put your head low. You better keep your mouth shut, or you might be next.
