Evidently the leaks of the Tucker Carlson tapes have now led to an FBI investigation. No, not into Tucker himself, nor Fox News. Instead the FBI is investigating certain Democrats and their role in this.

Keep in mind, not long after Tucker’s firing, suddenly tapes emerged of Tucker discussing interviews, joking around, and more. 

I remember seeing a few of those videos and thought, what’s the big deal? Well, lots of folks tried to make it a VERY BIG DEAL in showing that Tucker is a very bad guy, Fox News is evil, and all the bad things. 

The latest MMFA leak of Tucker Carlson presents him as extremely based.

“If you've got pronouns in your Twitter bio, you shouldn't work here because we can't trust you because you're on the other side.” pic.twitter.com/KwYZ0OohOU

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 9, 2023

Well, now we find out that there is a great deal more to the story. Like, a lot more to the story. 

An FBI search earlier this month at the home of media consultant Tim Burke and his wife, Tampa City Council member Lynn Hurtak, stemmed from an investigation of alleged computer intrusions and intercepted communications at the Fox News Network, the Tampa Bay Times has learned.

The Times obtained a letter Thursday that a Tampa federal prosecutor sent to Fox News, which describes an ongoing criminal probe into computer hacks at the company, including unaired video from Tucker Carlson’s show. The former primetime host was dropped by the network in April.

Wait…what? Fox News got hacked which is why the videos started showing up in late April and early May?  

Fox sent a cease-and-desist letter on Friday to Media Matters, the progressive watchdog, and its president, demanding that it take down embarrassing behind-the-scenes videos of Tucker Carlson attacking Fox News’ streaming service and making crude remarks while joking with staff.

The footage, published over the last week in a series of clips, comes in the wake of Carlson’s abrupt firing at the right-wing network and as a steady drip of leaked text messages show the former primetime star making racist and denigrating comments.

The sternly worded letter from Fox Corporation lawyers said the “unaired footage” is its “confidential intellectual property” and demanded Media Matters “cease and desist from distribution, publication, and misuse of Fox’s misappropriated proprietary footage, which you are now on notice was unlawfully obtained.”

So, Burke and his wife, a city councilwoman hacked Fox News and disseminated unaired footage to run a hit job on Tucker? Interesting!

The FBI asked that Fox News keep all records for at least 90 days. 

Assistant US Attorney Jay Trezevant wrote in the letter that Fox News should preserve information and records relating to the investigation for at least 90 days, with the government viewing the news network as “one of the potential victim-witnesses” of the alleged criminal conduct.

The investigation, Trezevant wrote, is in regards to allegations of federal crimes including unauthorized computer access, the interception of wire, oral, our electronic communications, and conspiracy.

The interesting thing is that Burke was a prolific poster of content, yet suddenly everything went dark in the last few weeks. 

For well over a decade, fans of the Twitter account @bubbaprog could count on a stream of compelling and obscure sports clips, inscrutable cable news blunders and left-leaning critiques of politicians and pundits. The account posted nearly 134,000 times since 2008, or around 25 times daily to its 117,000 followers. Videos posted there frequently reached millions of views.

For sports and media obsessives with a taste for the wonkish and arcane, @bubbaprog, run by the longtime journalist and blogger Tim Burke, was a fountain of weird and timely content — sportscasters’ faces frozen in midword contortions, basketball fans epically failing at high-fives or a candid clip of Tucker Carlson between segments, talking about buying 200 tins of dipping tobacco. That’s the tip of the iceberg for a recent week.

What’s interesting is that Burke seemingly no longer has a phone and with his media presence going dark, the speculation is rampant given Burke’s history of mining the internet for information and news. 

Does that mean Burke is the one responsible for hacking in and leaking the stories about Tucker? Not necessarily. But it IS interesting that, given Burke’s prolific internet history, suddenly it is seemingly wiped clean. One can’t help think there are multiple players in this and possibly Burke is just one of them. 

I read this and I could be confused, but I think this is the gov't treating FOX/Carlson as victims. Burke is a well-known person in the sports journalism world and it's pretty clear he's not working for Carlson.

— Andy Schwarz, sponsored by Envelopes of Cash (@andyhre) May 26, 2023

Needless to say, with Tucker’s abrupt firing by Fox News and the subsequent fallout, this latest news makes things all the more interesting. 

Was it Fox News employees who leaked? How was Burke involved? Was he involved? It kind of seems so given his prolific internet use cratered into nothing in these last couple of weeks. 

Needless to say this story gets more and more interesting all the time. What happens next? 

Feature Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons