UPS says it lost the cache of documents that Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed would damage Biden's campaign
- UPS told Business Insider that documents shipped to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson were lost in its care.
- Carlson said on his show on Wednesday that a cache of documents sent to California from New York went missing, but he did not say who was responsible.
- Carlson gave few details about the documents other than that they concerned Joe Biden and would be "damning" if made public. Fox News did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for more details.
- Carlson, a strong advocate of President Donald Trump, has previously hyped up the importance of unconfirmed revelations about Biden.
- UPS told Business Insider it was conducting an "urgent investigation" into the missing documents.
UPS told Business Insider that it lost the cache of documents that the Fox News host Tucker Carlson said had vanished in transit.
On his primetime show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Wednesday, the host said that on Monday "we received from a source a collection of confidential documents related to the Biden family."
"We believe those documents are authentic, they're real, and they're damning," he said.
Carlson did not elaborate on what the documents said. Fox News did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for more information.
Carlson, a strong advocate of President Donald Trump, has previously exaggerated the importance of supposed revelations about Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee.
Earlier this month, Carlson amplified a New York Post article's dubious claim that it found "smoking gun" emails tying Biden and his son Hunter to corruption in Ukraine. As Business Insider's Sonam Sheth noted, the story was full of holes and red flags.
Carlson said on Wednesday that the documents were sent to Fox News' main office in New York, where a producer was to ship them to Carlson in Los Angeles.
Carlson said they "vanished" en route. He identified the courier only as "a large national carrier, a brand-name company that we've used, you've used, countless times."
Glenn Zaccara, UPS's corporate media relations director, confirmed to Business Insider that Fox News used UPS to ship the documents.
"The package was reported with missing contents as it moved within our network," Zaccara said in an emailed statement.
"UPS is conducting an urgent investigation into this matter and regrets that the package was damaged. The integrity of our network and the security of our customers' goods are of utmost importance. We will remain in frequent, direct contact with Fox News as we learn more through our investigation."
Carlson gave some details on his show about the efforts the company went to in order to find the documents. When asked about those details, Zaccara declined to comment further.
Carlson said that an employee at a sorting facility "noticed that our package was open and empty."
"Apparently it had been opened," he said, adding that the company's security team interviewed employees and "searched the plane and the trucks that carried it."
"They went through the office in New York where our producer dropped that package off," Carlson continued. "They combed the entire cavernous sorting facility. They used pictures of what we had sent so that searchers would know what to look for.
"They went far and beyond. But they found nothing."
Carlson's claims about the documents prompted numerous questions and skepticism on social media.
Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, tweeted: "Oh for f*%! sake, seriously? Would have been a better story if your dog ate the damn papers."
Carlson did not elaborate on why the documents would be "damning" to the Biden family but suggested that they could affect the election.
"As of tonight, the company has no idea — and no working theory even — about what happened to this trove of materials, documents that are directly relevant to the presidential campaign just six days from now," Carlson said.
Fox News did not immediately respond to Business Insider's questions about the contents of the documents and why Carlson's team did not keep other copies of them.