{"id":1845,"date":"2025-09-21T01:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T01:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2025-09-21T01:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T01:32:16","slug":"no-evidence-found-yet-of-ties-between-charlie-kirks-shooting-and-left-wing-groups-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1845","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;No evidence&#8217; found yet of ties between Charlie Kirk&#8217;s shooting and left-wing groups, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0federal investigation\u00a0into the\u00a0assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u00a0has yet to find a link between the alleged shooter,\u00a022-year-old Tyler Robinson, and\u00a0left-wing groups\u00a0on which President Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to crack down after the killing, three sources familiar with the probe told NBC News.<\/p>\n<p>One person familiar with the federal investigation said that \u201cthus far, there is no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing groups.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk\u2019s ideology personally offensive,\u201d this person continued.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson makes first court appearance: ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K6w9-JsWfUU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In addition, two of the people familiar with the probe said it may be difficult to charge Robinson at the federal level for Kirk\u2019s killing, while the third source said there is still an expectation that some kind of federal charge is filed against Robinson.<\/p>\n<p>Factors that have complicated the effort to bring charges at the federal level include that Robinson, a Utah resident, did not travel from out of state; Kirk was shot during an open campus debate at Utah Valley University. Additionally, Kirk himself is not a federal officer or elected official.<\/p>\n<p>A Justice Department spokesperson said, \u201cThe investigation is ongoing and beyond that we decline to comment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Robinson\u00a0currently faces state charges, which were announced on Tuesday. He is being charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice, among others, and Utah prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. Prosecutors said Robinson targeted Kirk, the co-founder of the conservative political group Turning Point USA, during the Sept. 10 event because of his \u201cpolitical expression.\u201d His mother told investigators in part \u201cthat over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Brzozowski, who was until recently the Justice Department\u2019s counsel for domestic terrorism, told NBC News that while Kirk\u2019s assassination appears to meet the definition of domestic terrorism, finding a federal charge to bring against the shooter might be a challenge. There\u2019s no federal law that makes acts of domestic terrorism a stand-alone crime, although prosecutors can seek a sentencing enhancement after conviction.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI is frequently involved in domestic terrorism investigations that ultimately result in only state-level charges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs is always the case, the FBI needs a federal hook to initiate an investigation,\u201d Brzozowski said. \u201cHere, it appears that they\u2019re acting in an assistance to state authorities\u2019 capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Charging documents filed Tuesday also contained\u00a0a series of texts\u00a0between Robinson and a roommate, whom police described as \u201ca biological male who was involved in a romantic relationship\u201d with the suspect and transitioning to female. The roommate\u2019s identity has not been made public.<\/p>\n<p>The texts appear to link Robinson to the crime. One message alerted the roommate to a hidden note in their residence, which read: \u201cI had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I\u2019m going to take it,\u201d according to the documents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?????????????? You\u2019re joking right????\u201d the roommate apparently wrote back.<\/p>\n<p>Robinson allegedly told the roommate he planned the attack for more than a week and, when asked why he killed Kirk, said: \u201cI had enough of his hatred. Some hate can\u2019t be negotiated out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following Kirk\u2019s shocking assassination, which has sparked a wave of grief, fear and fury on the right, Trump and his allies have threatened to come after left-wing advocacy groups that they saw as fomenting the anger that led to Kirk\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, said left-wing organizations amounted to a \u201cvast domestic terror movement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,\u201d Miller said recently. \u201cIt will happen, and we will do it in Charlie\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As NBC News reported Thursday, that\u00a0effort is likely to face hurdles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of federal law on this,\u201d Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that tracks progressive groups and is influential in conservative circles, said then. \u201cFrankly, the states and localities should be doing a better job [of prosecuting criminal activity], as they did in the 1960s. They have enormously more manpower.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since 2002,\u00a0right-wing ideologies\u00a0have fueled more than 70% of all extremist attacks and domestic terrorism plots in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department also said in a study last year that the number of far-right attacks in this country continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. The study was removed from the Justice Department website in the past few days,\u00a0according to 404 Media.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk\u2019s funeral is set for Sunday in Arizona. On Thursday, a joint bulletin authored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Secret Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Department of Homeland Security said law enforcement is \u201ctracking several threats of unknown credibility\u201d against people who may be planning to attend Kirk\u2019s memorial, though so far there\u2019s no concrete evidence that anyone is in danger or that the threats are real, according to a senior law enforcement official.<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on\u00a0NBCNews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0federal investigation\u00a0into the\u00a0assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk\u00a0has yet to find a link between the alleged shooter,\u00a022-year-old Tyler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}