Maybe it is because the "liberal media" requires evidence before reporting a story.
Only true if you’ve forgotten their lack of critical reporting on WMDs during the run-up to the Iraq war and their frequent mistakes in reporting on Trump from 2016-2020.
All news reporting contains some level of bias. The mainstream media tends to be biased in favor of the national security state and people within the US national security state were uncharacteristically rattled by Trump. I mean, hundreds of articles about Trump were published citing nothing more than anonymous sources as evidence.
And the mainstream media tends to accept anonymous intelligence sources as credible often even though those types of stories have a mixed record for accuracy.
So while I don’t think Tucker citing an anonymous CIA source is good journalism, he’s not alone. That sort of thing happens often nowadays.
And regardless of whether it’s true or not, it’s newsworthy given the size of Carlson’s audience…