After an intensive, multi-day manhunt, law enforcement officials on Friday said they had taken into custody conservative icon Charlie Kirk’s killer. Police assert 22-year-old Tyler Robinson “acted alone” in assassinating the Turning Point USA founder.
But did he?
Authorities said Robinson’s roommate shared with investigators the alleged cold-blooded killer’s communications on messaging app Discord. In them, the suspect discusses “a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving the rifle in a bush, messages related to visually watching the area where a rifle was left, and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a towel.”
At a press conference Friday morning, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said investigators found a Mauser Model 98 .30-06 caliber, bolt-action rifle with a mounted scope in a wooded area on the Utah university campus where Kirk was fatally shot. Cox said the inscription on the fired casing read, “Notices bulges OwO What’s This?” That is apparently a reference to online memes tied to animated videos and “furry culture,” a fetish.
Two unfired casings found next to the rifle wrapped in a dark towel included separate inscriptions, Cox said: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao,” and “Hey fascist! Catch!” next to arrows pointing up, right, down, down, and down. According to multiple reports, the arrows represent an input code for an airstrike in a multi-person violent video game known as “Helldivers 2.” The code, too, has been used in memes “to signify a devastating reaction to something that should be destroyed,” USA Today reported.
“Bella Ciao” is an Italian antifascist song.
‘Radicalized’
As The Blaze’s Auron Macintyre put it, the shooter appears to have been “radicalized by a leftist terrorist network, and it seems like he may have also coordinated with them for the attack.”
“The FBI should be going scorched earth on them as we speak,” Macintyre wrote on X. “Lists, names, raids, arrests, action, no excuses.”
Even if the alleged assassin “acted alone,” he surely did not get to this moment on his own. We know so far from the early details of the investigation that the suspect appears steeped in Marxist Antifa-style indoctrination.
The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway said the stunning murder of the 31-year-old conservative leader needs to be a “wake-up call” to Congress.
“We’ve seen a lot of weakness and impotence on the right, so Republican leaders need to not just stand up there and say, ‘Oh, we must condemn—both sides do these things,’ Hemingway told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney this week. “They need to actually take the threat from left-wing activists very seriously. They need to investigate how they’re funded—Antifa, other terrorist groups. They’re going to war against ICE. You know, they tried to kill Donald Trump. They’ve successfully killed Charlie Kirk.”
President Trump earlier this week said his administration planned to investigate funding sources of violent far-left campaigns, noting leftist billionaire George Soros and his “nonprofits.”
“We’re going to look into Soros because I think it’s a RICO [racketeering] case against him and other people, because this is more than protests. This is real agitation. This is riots on the street — and we’re going to look into that,” Trump told Fox News.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., a member of the House Oversight Committee, told The Federalist he believes it is long past time for Congress to take a closer look at the activities and funding sources of leftist extremist organizations. Kirk’s assassination has made that effort all the more urgent.
‘Follow the Money’
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wants the House to form a select committee on “The money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”
“In the wake of numerous attacks on our way of life, the destruction of the rule of law, and the murder of innocent Americans, prominent and unknown alike, we must take every step to follow the money and uncover the force behind the NGOs, donors, media, public officials, and all entities driving this coordinated attack,” Roy said Thursday in a press release.
“The patterns are undeniable: we are witnessing a sustained breakdown of law and order, fueled not by chance, but by anti-American ideology,” Roy wrote in a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. “Of course, we witnessed the 2024 assassination attempt on President Trump as well as the 2017 shooting of Republican lawmakers at baseball practice, but it goes well beyond politicians and to the people themselves.”
He noted the “targets” placed on Kirk and the Family Research Council by the Southern Poverty Law Center after SPLC, an influential leftist hate group, added the two to their “Hate Map.” He also noted Marxist networks such as Antifa have organized, funded, and deployed “sophisticated terror campaigns attacking law enforcement and destroying American cities.”
The lawmaker said the best option is a stand-alone committee with full authority to investigate. Its members should have prosecutorial and law enforcement backgrounds, and the committee should be granted full subpoena powers, Roy wrote.
“We can no longer pretend to be bound together by shared ideals when a well-funded, vitriolic cadre of our fellow Americans and foreign interests are at war with the very values of faith in God, fidelity to our Constitution, and respect for the principles of liberty and Western Civilization that define us as Americans – including, notably, the free speech practiced and exemplified by Charlie Kirk,” the congressman added.
Those leftist networks, at least at some level, include the U.S. institutions of higher education that have become dens of radical leftism — “safe spaces” for Marxist, America-hating ideology at taxpayers’ expense.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
