You may recall last year how there were apparent "leaks" of Tucker Carlson in behind the scenes videos from when he worked for Fox.
The purpose of the 'leaks" seemed to be to try to make Carlson look bad, showing him in unplanned moments. But they only made him more popular with viewers. Some were quite funny and made him look even more relatable.
The clips also allegedly contained footage of Kanye West making antisemitic remarks.
That was followed by the news that the FBI raided the home of media consultant Tim Burke and his wife, Tampa City Council member Lynn Hurtak, a Democrat. They seized computers. The raid concerned an investigation of alleged computer intrusions and intercepted communications at the Fox News Network.
Burke has his own media company and previously did work for the Daily Beast and Deadspin.
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Now the FBI has arrested Burke and dropped a big indictment on him with 14 counts.
The indictment charges Burke with one count of conspiracy; six counts of accessing a protected computer without authorization; and seven counts of intercepting or disclosing wire, oral or electronic communications. [....]
According to the indictment, Burke and an unnamed person used “compromised credentials” to access and save protected commercial broadcast video streams, then disseminate specific clips after taking steps to mask where they came from and how they were obtained.
It's interesting that the indictment didn't name his conspirator, so that's more intriguing information yet to come out. That may be because there's still investigation going on.
At his court appearance, his wife, Lynn Hurtak, said she stood by her husband and would have no further comment. “I am confident in my husband’s innocence, and I support him completely,” Hurtak said.
While Fox isn't mentioned by name in the indictment there are mentions of things like accessing the stream of an interview featuring a show host for a “multinational media company based in New York City” on Oct. 6, 2022 — which was when Tucker Carlson interviewed Kanye West.
Burke's attorneys deny he did anything wrong, claiming he obtained video by following a hyperlink to live video feeds that didn’t require passwords and were not encrypted.
“It’s not hacking, it’s just good investigative journalism,” attorney Michael Maddux told the Times before entering the courthouse Thursday afternoon.
“We obviously emphatically deny these charges and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to defend him and exonerate him.”
We'll have to see how that defense works. Meanwhile, Burke was released without bond, despite the prosecutor asking for $30,000.
But it's perhaps more than a little ironic that the "leaks" to seemingly attack Tucker Carlson have now come back around to take down a liberal journalist. Meanwhile, Carlson is free from legacy media, able to report on what he wishes. That is quite the boomerang.