The FBI issued a response after Tucker Carlson accused the bureau of lying about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Carlson made his remarks about suspect Thomas Crooks, forcing the FBI to respond directly to claims about his digital footprint.
Tucker Carlson made controversial claims about the FBI and Thomas Crooks
Crooks is accused of attempting to assassinate the president at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last July.
In the end, he succeeded only in hitting the president’s ear, although 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed in the incident.
Two other men - David Dutch and James Copenhaver - were injured, before Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper moments later.
Carlson said: "The FBI told us Thomas Crooks tried to kill Donald Trump last summer, but somehow had no online footprint. The FBI lied, and we can prove it because we have his posts. The question is why?”
In response, the FBI Rapid Response account posted: "This FBI has never said Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever."
Tucker Carlson question the FBI's narrative. Credit: Tucker Carlson/X
Carlson expanded on his claims in a video
On Friday, Carlson shared a video he said the FBI - led by director Kash Patel - "has worked hard to make sure you haven’t seen".
The footage allegedly came from Crooks’ Google Drive, and showed him practicing with a gun.
It also claims to prove that Crooks had a number of accounts online and also posted comments on YouTube.
Those comments, Carlson contended, show that Crooks "was not some secretive lone wolf who never warned anyone that he was planning violence".
He argued: “Thomas Crooks came within a quarter inch of destroying this country, and yet, a year and a half later, we still know almost nothing about him or why he did it.
“That's because, for some reason, the FBI, even the current FBI, doesn't want us to know.”
He accused the bureau of ‘[having] hidden from the public what they know’ and added: “So here you have volatile, troubled, possibly mentally ill young man with a long record of espousing violence in public.
“The FBI clearly knew he existed.”
Carlson then claimed that they "used a selective read of those comments to lie about what Thomas Crooks was thinking".
Patel himself then later released documents on Friday that indirectly refute Carlson’s claims.
On X, he wrote: "The investigation, conducted by over 480 FBI employees, revealed Crooks had limited online and in-person interactions, planned and conducted the attack alone, and did not leak or share his intent to engage in the attack with anyone.”
The investigation - he wrote - "identified and examined over 20 online accounts, data extracted from over a dozen electronic devices, examination of numerous financial accounts, and over 1,000 interviews and 2,000 public tips".