Conservative star Tucker Carlson dropped a bombshell on Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton on Monday, and claimed that the senator blocked someone who would push for releasing JFK assassination and Jeffrey Epstein files.
During a Monday appearance on NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo podcast, Carlson revealed that Cotton personally intervened to stop a new hire for President Donald Trump’s incoming administration in January 2025, because it would have lead to the JFK and Epstein documents being released to the American people.
Cotton’s office has denied the accusation.
“In January there was a scramble over who’s gonna get what jobs in the new administration. At one point there was someone who was being discussed for a job in the intel world, and a member of the SSCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Intel Committee, went to the people making the decision and said, ‘You cannot hire this person because this person will be certain to push for the release of the JFK files,'” Carlson said.
“So, this is in 2025, less than two months ago, and you have a sitting member of the United States Senate whose main goal is to keep those files secret. Then you have to ask yourself, ‘What is that?'” Carlson asked during the interview. “If you’re telling me that six weeks ago, a member of the United States Senate was trying to keep someone out of a job in order to keep these files secret, that is to protect the CIA, I don’t believe that for a second.”
Cuomo pushed back and demanded specifics, and asked Carlson why he hadn’t called Trump personally.
“So, wait a minute. Here’s the part I don’t understand. You are uniquely qualified to get this answer because one of us can call the president of the United States right now and ask him, and the other one is me. So why don’t you know?” Cuomo asked.
“So what I brought to it was the knowledge that a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee – I’m not guessing – called over and said you cannot appoint this person — ” Carlson replied.
Cuomo pressed for him to “expose” the senator.
“Tom Cotton of Arkansas did that,” Carlson responded — although he admitted he has not confronted the senator about the allegation.
A spokesperson for Cotton firmly rejected Carlson’s claims in a statement to The Daily Caller.
“Mr. Carlson has texted Senator Cotton multiple times in recent weeks and had he reached out about the ‘JFK files,’ the ‘UFO files,’ or any other files, Senator Cotton would’ve explained that he has never spoken to President Trump or his associates or administration officials about the ‘JFK files,’ has never objected to the appointment of any person because of the files, and has complete faith that Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and other officials will release the files as appropriate in accordance with President Trump’s directive,” the spokesman said.
Cotton “has no objection to such release of the ‘JFK files’,” his spokesman said.
For Trump’s second term, a new House Oversight Task Force on the Declassification of Government Documents has formed to review materials related to both Kennedy’s assassination and the files of disgraced billionaire pedophile Epstein.
In January, Trump ordered the Director of National Intelligence and other officials to present him with a plan for releasing the JFK files within 15 days of his request on January 23.
The FBI confirmed on February 11 to the Daily Caller that they discovered approximately 2,400 “previously unrecognized” records related to JFK’s assassination.
During their conversation, Carlson echoed American frustrations with the slow pace of document release on JFK and Epstein.
“Once again, you clearly have a force that’s applying measurable pressure on the people who should have the power,” Carlson said. “The elected president of the United States should have the power under our system. That’s called democracy. And his appointees have derivative power from him. But they appear to be powerless in the face of some other source of power, and the question is what is that source?”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on March 3 that the FBI had thousands of files on Epstein, and vowed to release the complete documents within days.
She has still not released any of the promised information.