Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he will name the Ukraine whistleblower once he has confirmed the person’s identity.
His declaration on Wednesday’s show comes after it was revealed Fox warned hosts on the network not to say the name of the official whose complaint sparked an impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Carlson was reacting to his guest Floyd Brown, founder of the right-wing Western Journal, discussing how Facebook and YouTube are blocking users from spreading the name of the CIA analyst alleged to be the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella.
“I know that Fox News is not saying the name of the whistleblower, but it was accidentally said by somebody on your network, and then that was posted on YouTube, which was immediately censored by approximate Google,” Brown said.
Carlson said there is a “legitimate debate” going on before addressing his own situation.
“No one at Fox told me what to do or not on that issue despite a lot of reporting to the contrary. I have not named the guy because I have not confirmed it. I can’t find anybody who will confirm it. But as soon as we do, we will. That’s journalism,” he said. “You may disagree. But the point is this guy, whether he is the whistleblower or not, is at the center of an important news story and the average person ought to be able to make up his or her mind on that, but we are not allowed to because the tech monopolists won’t allow us.”
As Carlson would tell it, he has not seen the Oct. 31 memo from a company executive, reported by CNN, which warned staff against naming the alleged whistleblower because Fox News has not “independently confirmed [the] name or identification of the anonymous whistleblower.”
Fox News representatives did not immediately return a request for comment on Carlson’s statement.
Another late night host friendly to Trump, Sean Hannity claimed last week that he had “multiple confirmations” of the identity of the whistleblower but has not said a name.
Despite the ban, Ciaramella’s name has been uttered by two people on Fox News in recent days. Last week, Lars Larson, who was a guest on Outnumbered Overtime, named him. Network contributor Mollie Hemingway named Ciaramella on Sunday’s episode of Media Buzz.
Howard Kurtz, Fox News’ media reporter and the host of Media Buzz, has taken a strong stance against the media naming the whistleblower, as Trump and his allies have advocated. He argued that doing so would send a “chilling message” to future whistleblowers.
“I don’t think it’s the role of the media to disclose the identity of the whistleblower,” Kurtz said on Monday. “As you know, a name came up on my program yesterday. I don’t think that should have happened. Mollie Hemingway says that she was simply repeating a name that had been bandied about by certain sites, and no one had told her that Fox and other organizations were not using the name.”
Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid, lawyers for the whistleblower, refuse to confirm the identity of their client.
“Identifying any suspected name for the whistleblower will place their family at risk of serious harm. We will not confirm or deny any name that is published or promoted by supporters of the president. Disclosure of any name undermines the integrity of the whistleblower system and will deter any future whistleblowers,” they said in a statement last week. “We will note, however, that publication or promotion of a name shows the desperation to deflect from the substance of the whistleblower complaint. It will not relieve the president of the need to address the substantive allegation, all of which have been substantially proven to be true.”
