Fox News Executives Chase Tucker Carlson-Kanye West Leaker

This report appears as one of several scooplets in this week’s issue of confidant, the newsletter draws back the curtain on the media. Subscribe to here and send your questions, tips and complaints here.

Fox News executives “freaked out” over the leak of never-aired clips of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Kayne West, Confider has learned, and the network is closing in on the “mole” that was the source of the embarrassing breach.

A few weeks ago, Carlson interviewed West, now known by the mononym Ye, and touted him as a brave truth-teller who was being reviled by liberal elites for his increasingly far-right beliefs and stunts like wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt to Paris Fashion will be done week.

Despite Fox News’ celebration of West’s perceived intellectual stature, unaired snippets leaked to Vice’s motherboard showed the rapper and fashion mogul openly spouting anti-Semitic tropes and bizarre claims about “fake kids” being used to manipulate his children . (This interview was before Ye threatened to go online for Death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE before being banned from multiple platforms.)

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Fox may be getting closer to the leaker, but it’s been almost a week now since Vice released the videos. It’s a notable detail because in 2012, the last time the network dealt with a major video breach, it located and escorted the leaker — Bill O’Reilly’s then-associate producer Joe Muto — out of the building in less than 24 hours.

“This new leaker has learned from my mistakes,” Muto told Confider. “The main reason I got caught was because I wasn’t doing a very good job of covering my digital trail. They’re obviously doing a better job than me if they haven’t been found yet.”

Following Muto’s leaks to Gawker, the network implemented stricter security protocols for accessing videos, making it harder to access sensitive outtakes like Ye’s. “It seems that this leaker found a way around that,” Muto noted.

If you’re the Kanye video leaker or anyone else at Fox with interesting information, we’d love to hear from you. Email us at truster@thedailybeast.com.

A Fox News spokesman declined to comment.

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