The federal investigation into the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has yet to find a link between the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, and left-wing groups on which President Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to crack down after the killing, three sources familiar with the probe told NBC News.

One person familiar with the federal investigation said that “thus far, there is no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing groups.”

“Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive,” this person continued.

In addition, two of the people familiar with the probe said it may be difficult to charge Robinson at the federal level for Kirk’s killing, while the third source said there is still an expectation that some kind of federal charge is filed against Robinson.

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.

A Justice Department spokesperson said, “The investigation is ongoing and beyond that we decline to comment.”

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 hours ago

    I think the only reason there hasn’t yet been a full-blown pogrom against the LGBTQ community is that the shooter they apprehended was a far-right groyper and not the far-left antifa terrorist they assumed would target someone like Kirk.

    But with the sheer number of people on the left openly celebrating Kirk’s death, I don’t think they’ll really need evidence to start going after the left.

    • Cassanderer@thelemmy.club
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Pretending to be sad about the spearhead of the Nazi youth is just pathetic. Even if everyone pretended it would not stop them, it is just a matter of if you go down swinging or not.

    • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      5 hours ago

      I heard that he might be one at first, but newest news say exactly what the article said: no groyper, no leftist.

      Which makes sense because it both sounded weird to me that a leftist would write “whoever reads this is gay lol” or that a right-winger would write “Bella chiao” or “take that, fascist”.

      • Cassanderer@thelemmy.club
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I think one of them said catch fascist or something like that. Which is kind of funny. But if you can read this you are gay. I think he was just messing with everybody at this point.

      • BanMe@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        5 hours ago

        This is a great example of how BOTH sides live in bot-fed echo chambers - just as much misinformation was flowing in the progressive online communities (including here) and it didn’t help our credibility.

        We really need to get in the habit of sourcing things before we breathlessly repeat them on social media. It’s not hard to verify something.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    15 hours ago

    Don’t worry I’m sure they’ll find some eventually if they just keep looking. The libs are very good at hiding themselves. Sometimes they vote for republicans, that’s a sure sign their liberal, voting for republicans.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      6 hours ago

      Since when have the american right ever cared about facts? These guys are all feefees, no brain. Its why every time somebody capitulates to their demands they create a new dumber demand.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      15 hours ago

      I know that the apparently had a trans woman mate but was he personally himself trans, I hadn’t heard that. Was it just more made up nonsense.

  • TheJesusaurus@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    31
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    23 hours ago

    It honestly doesn’t matter. Did or didn’t, left right, or corkscrew. If we knew definitively now factually 100% he can conclusively be put into 1 bucket. The facts don’t matter to them. The truth is already in.

    To be on their side, you “know” the “truth”.

    And if you don’t “know” the “truth”, than by gee you seem awfully suspicious mr…

    • nickiwest@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      6 hours ago

      And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth.

      — George Orwell, 1984

  • fox2263@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    224
    ·
    1 day ago

    “Yet”

    The investigation will continue until we have completed the manufacturing process.

    • 52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’m sure they are looking for some sense of organization, a group that they can define and eliminate. That’s not going to happen. Read “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.” This is a leaderless movement where the rhetoric of some inspires others to violence without there being any material connection between the two. It’ll increase and it won’t stop so long as the conditions continue and so long as these don’t morph into an organization with leadership.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        None of these shooters are left wing though. It’s not like the only thing the administration is wrong about is their level of organisation. The premise that there is a left-wing extremism problem is completely false. They’re trying to pin all this violence on completely the wrong people so that they can ramp up their persecution of trans people and anti-fascists.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 day ago

        It’s not just that he wasn’t actually “organized” with a left wing group, it’s that even as they go fishing they can’t even find credible evidence of significant leftist influence at all.

        He wasn’t organized with anyone, and the only whiff of influence they seem to have found was playing with right wing shit post fodder. They haven’t indicating finding any sort of “militant” influence at all.

        It seems that he just kind of broke on his own, with his gun friendly upbringing escalating that to a supremely high profile assassination out of nowhere.

        Now they can certainly find leftists celebrating Kirk’s death a bit tastelessly much and they are mad as hell about that all on its own but the actual killing seems to be nihilist violent extremism. They have a good reason to be concerned that obviously tensions are tight enough to have these things pop off. Bernie Sanders certainly seems to understand that and put forward an inclusive message about victims on both sides and for at least some unifying response from both sides.

        However the biggest blowhards on the right seen to be doubling down and escalating rhetoric, which is the last thing the situation needs.

      • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 day ago

        Exactly. It’s not an organized group. It’s just people that still have their moral compass intact.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 day ago

          I wouldn’t assume the Kirk shooter has anything particularly “intact”. He seemed to enjoy the right wing meme stuff more and treated the killing more like a shit post that any ideological stand.

          As a target, Charlie Kirk was actually a pretty terrible choice. He has no real power, and even in terms of influence I’d say he was a bit removed from any directly influential circle. He said vile stuff but say least he did actually let others get a fair share of his stage in his engagements. May have just been for the heightened engagement for content, but either way at least he let things play out in ways that the left could enjoy him getting owned by good points to his face, instead of settling for “reaction videos”.

          • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            I’m not talking about him, I don’t see any reason to consider him a member of antifa or the “left” at all. I’ve even read that a subset of groypers have a fetish for femboys. Hell, his Steam username was DonaldTrump according to Kotaku. No progressive I know would want to associate with that scumbag, even ironically.

        • cynar@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          Not quite.

          Yet implies they expect to.

          Thus far is more neutral, erring towards not expecting to find anything.

          • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            13 hours ago

            “Thus far” means “up to this point in time”.

            It is neutral about anything in the future, yes, because it is avoiding making any commentary on it. But it is NOT “erring towards not expecting to find anything”

            It is explicitly not predicting any outcome positive or negative. No expectation of any kind.

            It states what the communicator believes are the facts to date with ZERO speculation about the future

            • cynar@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              13 hours ago

              It implies the trend is likely to continue. That the searched areas and the unsearched areas are nominally the same.

              E.g. An inspector saying they have found 20 problems, this far, while 50% finished implies they expect to find 40ish overall.

              Finding zero problems thus far implies you are not expecting to find many/any, if the trend continues.

              • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                12 hours ago

                No it doesn’t. It’s a summary to a point in time.

                If the inspector has found 20 problems then he’s found twenty problems. The reader may extrapolate that more will be found, but the statement makes no such implication

      • fox2263@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        While the real suspect lives a new life. 👀

        If you believe that sort of thing that is

  • dirigibles@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    23 hours ago

    I don’t know why anyone cares about this kid. He’s the alleged shooter. The feds still haven’t provided anything credible to prove he was the guy, no video of the kid on the roof with the rifle, no bullet, no medical report, weird people in the crowd causing a distraction, tampering of the crime scene, clearly fake text exchange…there are so many more important questions that need answers.

    • philosloppy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      20 hours ago

      Because the current admin needs someone to pin this on to appear competent and strong because that’s the foundation of their entire worldview. And they need him to fit an ideological profile so they have something to point to as justification as they continue to escalate their response to political dissent.

      Case in point: Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air for deviating from the accepted party line because the FCC threatened ABC/Disney with retaliation.

    • vga@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Clearly fake text exchange… that the other party of the chat admits participating in?

      • dirigibles@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Have you read the text exchange? No timestamp, no confirmation on what platform the exchange even took place on so that the third party could verify their legitimacy, and their exchange just so happens to layout the motive, discussed the murder weapon, uses perfect punctuation, and just flat out sounds weird.

        To be real, I have no idea if those messages are fake or not. At this point, nobody but the FBI can vouch for their legitimacy and they don’t have the best track record.

  • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    And there won’t be.

    This was predicted during the first Trump administration. A MAGAt is primed for violence for ten years & then figures out he’s been lied to and propagandized the entire time. They then use that violence on the very scum that lied to them.

    Sometimes the Stochastic terrorism boomerangs.

  • nozone@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    If the Discord groups he hung out in were leftist or in any way “antifa” they would have been screaming about it this whole time. He hung out in far right meme circles. It looks like they’ve decided on the lone, crazy gunman approach so they can avoid accountability yet again.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        20
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        Maybe. That might have also been fully fabricated. Hard to tell anymore.

        Will be very funny if all this bullshit FBI efforts to blame someone other than him somehow gets his case thrown out.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          22 hours ago

          Yeah we’ve left the era in which we can trust narratives that are being built, and that’s really fucking bad for everyone. This is especially present whenever claims of trans people come up. History may find out what happened but we won’t know aoon

    • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, from the stuff posted, it sounds like he used it just like most people do. To have conversations with friends about life and games. But that won’t stop them from continuing to talk about them like they were. It’s all lies all the time.

      • nozone@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        A) Unless the FBI are totally incompetent they know which Discord groups he was active in. B) They haven’t said anything about them so they don’t support the official narrative they’re trying to create (ie: leftist trans people are responsible). C) The bullet casing memes they released (if they’re real) are used in right wing meme circles (they didn’t understand them which is why they made them public).

        I don’t know the names of his Discord groups however. If the FBI ever releases that info then I’ll let you know.

        • Soktopraegaeawayok@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          23 hours ago

          leftist trans people are responsible

          How are they creating narrative? And they arent saying leftist transvestites are responsible. But that is what his girlfriend is a left transvestites. They were in a relationship, of course she will have some sort of influence on him. And all those texts back and forth by them

  • rafoix@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    133
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day ago

    lol It’s so obvious that they’re starting this investigation with a “conclusion” and they’re trying really hard to make it fit.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’m just shocked that despite that, they seem to actually at some level be admitting the evidence doesn’t fit the narrative. I would have fully expected them to try, fail, then just make something up without ever making a peep that the narrative may have been off.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      19
      ·
      1 day ago

      Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive

      Literally not true.

          • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            21
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            Lmao did you happen to see the president’s speech right after it happened (not to mention the sentiment of basically his entire cabinet)? Are you honestly saying him and his cabal didn’t already pin this on a particular group of people before looking at any actual evidence or even waiting for there to be any actual evidence?

                • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  I’m just saying to me it sounds like you’re being no better than the republicans and running with baseless theories.

                  We will see when he’s convicted and shown to be motivated by his own morals and not so much politics.

  • Gates9@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    23 hours ago

    If he was a lefty they would have been rubbing our faces in it day 1, not doctoring social media messages.

  • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    59
    ·
    1 day ago

    They don’t need any links or ties to justify their hate. They just need feelings of being oppressed, wronged, robbed, and disrespected. There is no excuse needed to blame and attack people who aren’t like them. It’s in their DNA, they’ve done this since before this country was a country.

    • Soktopraegaeawayok@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      This is the level-headed comment so far. Its true too about hate, that’s how he pulled the trigger, an intense hatred. He didn’t just disagree with Kirk on most stuff, no, he must have rejected and despised every word he said. Honestly, I’ve seen some of that hatred too, its real and scary to see people talking about really desiring to hurt other strangers. Coming from either side.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    56
    ·
    1 day ago

    Yeah, no kidding there is no connection because there is virtually nothing organized on the left. And what prominent left wing groups use the kind of stochastic terrorism that the conservatives use?

    I mean, on the conservative side, it starts from the very top, with Taco, and continues on down to the very bottom to your average red-hatter. All of them constantly make threats involve violence, all the time.

    Taco talked about “second amendment people”.

    Project 2025 architect says there will be a bloodless revolution, if liberals allow it.

    Kirk gets shot and the conservatives all, without knowing anything about the shooter, decared war on the majority of the country…