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Charlie Kirk suspect caught, but FBI hint at chaos behind the scenes

On Wednesday 10 September, a gunman shot and killed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Despite the shooting happening at a public event and in broad daylight, the killer escaped the scene of the crime. Since then, an FBI press conference has suggested a chaotic state of affairs behind the scenes. This is on top of the chaos which was already going on as a result of changes made by president Donald Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel:

While an alleged suspect is reportedly now in custody, this doesn’t say much about the FBI’s ability to conduct an investigation in the current landscape. As reported by Sky News, Trump claims he wasn’t actually caught, but that the alleged gunman’s father handed him into the police.

Charlie Kirk suspect chaos

Two comments stood out in the FBI press conference given on 11 September. The first was this (emphasis added):

So far, we’ve received more than 7,000 leads and tips. Uh, I I would just note that the FBI hasn’t received this many digital media tips from the public since the Boston Marathon bombing.

The second was the following:

I uh I I would also just add a word of note for those people who are spending so much time on on social media. I think Charlie said it best that when when things get get bad, we should put our phones down and spend a little time with our our families.

So what’s the relevance of all this?

Specifically, the response on social media led to a great deal of chaos and confusion, as NPR reported in 2023:

One 2013 study showed that 29% of the most viral content shared in the days after the bombing was false information or rumors. Another 50% were just opinions or feelings, not facts.

In one case, Twitter users picked up a Reddit rumor that a missing Brown University student was the chief suspect. And the rumor was repeated, prima facie, by some journalists.

It wasn’t the only mistake legacy media outlets made.

In one notorious example, CNN prematurely reported a suspect had been arrested. Other outlets, including the Associated Press and the Boston Globe followed their lead — and all had to issue corrections when officials denied the claim.

The New York Post was sued for libel after publishing a photo of two Moroccan runners under the headline “Bag Men.”

Some online investigators believed the bombing was a ‘false flag attack’, which is a now common accusation following any violent event.

Another incident was when Reddit identified Sunil Tripathi as their key suspect. The problem? Tripathi wasn’t the perpetrator. In fact, it would later turn out Tripathi wasn’t even alive at the time of the bombing.

These references to the Boston Marathon Bombing and social media seem to be the FBI signalling that they’re being fed more unhelpful information than they can sift through.

As the Boston bombing happened over 10 years ago, you’d think they’d be better placed to handle this, right?

Well, the thing about that is.

Cuts

In January, Reuters reported that Trump’s Justice Department was making “sweeping cuts”. In particular, these cuts targeted FBI agents and prosecutors who subjected January 6th rioters to justice.

As Reuters reported:

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove on Thursday told the top federal prosecutors in each state to compile a list of all prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the investigation of the Capitol riot, which was the largest Justice Department probe in modern U.S. history, two sources briefed on the matter said.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

The FBI was also ordered by Tuesday to provide a list of all employees who worked on the criminal cases against Trump, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

That memo ordered eight FBI officials to resign or be fired, saying that their participation in the Jan. 6 cases represented part of what Trump has called the “weaponization” of government.

In a statement on Friday, the FBI Agents Association, a membership group of more than 14,000 active and former FBI agents, called the moves “outrageous.”

The sackings have continued since then. Interestingly, FBI director Kash Patel actually fired the special agent heading up Salt Lake City, Utah just last month. For those who don’t know, Salt Lake city is the office investigating the Kirk shooting.

Patel, a Trump loyalist, is a former lawyer, children’s book author, and conspiracy theorist. Former FBI director Andrew McCabe had this to say on Patel travelling to Utah to oversee the Kirk case:

There are many good reasons why you wouldn’t go, if you’re the director, out to the scene of an ongoing post-crisis investigation. One of the reasons not to do that is because the presence of the director imposes a huge burden on the field office. There’s all kinds of arrangements that have to be made, there’s all kinds of security concerns that arise.

He added:

Transportation becomes very complicated, and that’s the last thing you want to do to the field office while they’re in the middle of investigating a critical incident. So again, it’s strange to go out there under those circumstances.


We should note that McCabe was fired in the first Trump administration after he ordered a probe into Trump potentially obstructing justice by firing another FBI director. McCabe was two ways away from retirement at the time of his sacking.

Despite the suspect allegedly being handed in by his father, Patel took credit for the ‘record turnaround’ between the murder and arrest:

Patel ended his speech by telling his deceased friend Charlie Kirk to rest now, and that he would ‘see him in Valhalla’.

The FBI

You could certainly argue that the FBI should have its funding cut. In an article titled “How the FBI Created a Terrorist”, the Intercept wrote about how the FBI targeted a Muslim man with a schizoaffective disorder, writing:

FBI employees talked about how Osmakac didn’t have any money, how he thought the U.S. spy satellites were watching him, and how he had no concept of what weapons cost on the black market.

The source of their amusement was also their primary source of concern. Osmakac was, in the FBI’s own words, “a retarded fool” who didn’t have any capacity to plan and execute an attack on his own. That was a challenge for the FBI.

The piece goes on:

In constructing the sting, FBI agents were in communication with prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, the transcripts show. The prosecutors needed the FBI to show Osmakac giving Amir Jones money for the weapons. Over several conversations, the FBI agents struggled to create a situation that would allow the penniless Osmakac to hand cash to the undercover agent.

“How do we come up with enough money for them to pay for everything?” asks FBI Special Agent Taylor Reed in one recording.

“Right now, we have money issues,” Amir admits in a separate conversation.

Their advantage was that Dabus, the informant, had given Osmakac a job. If they could get Dabus to pay Osmakac, and then make sure Osmakac used his paycheck to make a payment toward the weapons, the agents could satisfy the Justice Department. “Once he gives it to him, it’s his money, whether we orchestrated it or not,” Reed says.

It’s important to remember, though, that Trump isn’t diminishing the FBI because of stuff like this. He’s kneecapping the bureau to avoid the little scrutiny he’s experienced in the past, and to funnel more into ICE – an organisation which has been described as the “American Gestapo“.

The FBI have their suspect in this case, but given his family handed him in to police, they seem to have got lucky. We’ll see how long their luck holds out.

Featured image via Associated Press / CNN News

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.