'Jim Cooper has asked the intel agencies to dig up dirt on us': Tucker Carlson claims Democrat lawmaker asked US government to investigate him over his criticism of Biden's Ukraine policy

 Fox News host Tucker Carlson's criticism of the Biden administration's handling of the crisis in Ukraine has pushed a Democratic lawmaker to ask an intelligence briefer to dig up dirt on the top-ranked cable news program in an effort to find out if the show is tied to Russia. 

Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, 65, asked the question during a closed-door briefing in Congress on Wednesday, Carlson revealed on his show Friday. 

'We are not tied to Russia, of course,' Carlson said. 'It's a cable television program. He knows that. But that is not the point.'  

'So in retaliation for that, Jim Cooper has asked the intel agencies to dig up dirt on us,' he added. 'To be clear, that is not allowed. It is illegal to use the U.S. Government to settle partisan scores or to silence opposition journalists.' 

Carlson told viewers that Cooper - a Blue Dog Coalition member who is planning to retire in January after serving in Congress for 32 years - 'admitted what he did today when we asked him,' and was 'too cowardly to come on tonight to explain how he could justify that.' 

Dailymail.com reached out to Cooper's office for comment. 

U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat who represents Nashville, (pictured here in 2018) asked an intelligence briefer during a closed-door meeting this week to 'dig up dirt' on Tucker Carlson's show and find out if it's tied to Russia, Carlson claimed on his show Friday

'We are not tied to Russia, of course,' Carlson said Friday, claiming that Rep. Cooper's request was in retaliation for Carlson's criticism on the Biden administration's Ukraine policy

In a statement on Twitter Friday, Cooper's office stated that the congressman was marking the first anniversary of his wife's death, who died from Alzheimer's disease. 

The statement also noted that Cooper 'has every right to ask whatever questions he thinks are important to strengthening American security during confidential House Intelligence Committee hearings.'

Carlson found that excuse appalling. 

'It is also, by the way, illegal to secretly monitor their electronic communication,' he said. 'We are not speculating about it. The NSA admitted that.' 

'This is scary behavior. It is also revealing. After a full year of governing, all the Biden administration could muster when challenged are ad hominem attacks and more spying from the Intel agents. Let's put the Intel agencies on. What they can't do is explain themselves. They don't even try.' 

Rep. Cooper's office responded to Tucker Carlson's claims in a statement obtained by The Washington Examiner and shared by Daniel Chaitin on Twitter Friday

Carlson made the remarks on the same day U.S. paratroopers, armored vehicles and jets arrived in Poland as part of the deployment of 3,000 troops into Eastern Europe in a major show of force to try to deter Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine.

The Biden administration has insisted the troops are not escalatory and are meant to reassure NATO allies the U.S. is sworn to defend under Article V of the NATO treaty, which President Biden calls a 'sacred obligation.' 

Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee is the 29th Democrat to announce he's not running for re-election this year

Russia has called the new deployments 'destructive,' even while amassing more than 100,000 of its own troops around Ukraine.  

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Friday defended the U.S. commitment of military aid to Ukraine.

'We've provided hundreds of billions of dollars in aid security assistance over the course of not just the last year but long before that, and including a commitment the President made was announced around president [Volodymyr] Zelensky's visit,' she told reporters at the White House.

On Carlson's show Friday night, he told viewers that his criticism of the Biden administration's handling of the crisis in Ukraine is what pushed Rep. Cooper to ask an intelligence briefer to dig up dirt on the news program in an effort to find out if the show is tied to Russia. 

Cooper had announced at the end of January that he will not seek another term and blasted Republicans in his state's General Assembly for 'dismembering Nashville' in the once-a-decade redistricting process.

His announcement comes after the Republican-controlled state assembly in Tennessee split his Nashville district into three other congressional districts.

'Despite my strength at the polls, I could not stop the General Assembly from dismembering Nashville,' Cooper said in a statement Tuesday. 'No one tried harder to keep our city whole. I explored every possible way, including lawsuits, to stop the gerrymandering and to win one of the three new congressional districts that now divide Nashville. There's no way, at least for me in this election cycle, but there may be a path for other worthy candidates.'