Three weeks ago, one of the most politically and culturally influential individuals in America was executed in cold blood in front of 3,000 live witnesses and hundreds of cameras. Tens or hundreds of millions of people have now seen the tragic, horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk themselves, as recorded on those cameras. It’s time to stop pretending that the government’s narrative about the circumstances of that assassination makes any sense.
Let me be the first to say that I have had the highest hopes and expectations of FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino. If ever two American patriots could be brought to bear to root out the corruption within the thoroughly weaponized and politicized Federal Bureau of Investigation, it was these two gentlemen. I still hold a shred of hope that my lofty expectations will be proven justified. But my hopes are sadly dissipating, much like the life of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on that fateful September 10.
I am not in any way a firearms, ballistics, or medical expert. But I do have common sense, and things were not adding up to me even based on my layman’s knowledge of these topics. I now have the benefit of having seen the analyses of genuine experts in these fields, which appear quite informed and well-reasoned on the subject, and my existing doubts were only magnified.
I would encourage everyone to watch two of these experts’ discussions. The first, of about 20 minutes, is a podcast interview by former Fox host Clayton Morris and his wife with retired CIA officer Larry Johnson, a highly credible national security expert who also happens to be an NRA-certified firearms instructor. Mr. Johnson is firmly of the opinion that the claim that Charlie Kirk died from a .30-06 round fired from 140 yards, as asserted by the FBI, is preposterous.
The second video is one recommended by Mr. Johnson. It is a presentation given by pathologist Dr. Chris Martinson, who is also a highly experienced shooter. Martinson offers a very good, detailed analysis of the layout of the grounds in which the Kirk assassination occurred, complete with aerial photographs, distances measured, etc. He also provides an excellent description of the physiological and anatomical events that occurred after the bullet entered Kirk’s body, as well as the ballistic effects of different rounds on the human body.
I've seen many analyses by various experts, but Martinson's presentation (a little over an hour) is, in my humble opinion, superb and the best I've seen. It appears to be speculation-free and thorough, examining every aspect of events that day, and providing ample anatomical descriptions of gunshot injuries, ballistics tests, bullet trajectory measurements, and other forensic analysis that seems to put the lie to the notion that Mr. Kirk was felled by a .30-06 round fired from a shooting position 10 degrees to the front left and above Mr. Kirk.
Friends more experienced than me assure me that all will eventually be revealed in court. However, based purely on the claims that have already been made by the FBI and the US Attorney for Utah in this case, I’m skeptical.
“Conspiracy theories” are already running rampant surrounding this event. Most or perhaps all of those theories could be laid to rest if the government were to simply release the autopsy results on Mr. Kirk (although radio dispatch recordings have already suggested that no autopsy was done), along with ballistics tests, photographs of the bullet or its fragments, and comparative analyses of those bullet fragments with test rounds fired from the Mauser rifle reportedly found in the woods that the FBI has claimed was used in the shooting.
The very last thing the FBI needs right now, as Messrs. Patel and Bongino seek to restore the agency's shattered reputation, is any hint of cover-up, fraud, obfuscation, or anything short of complete transparence in what is the most important political assassination in over 60 years. The manifold inconsistencies and oddities with respect to the JFK assassination 62 years ago have many, if not most, Americans doubting the lone-gunman theory long maintained in the official government annals of that event. And the federal government still has not released all the classified documents in its possession surrounding that mystery.
In my many years of investigating the government, after having worked in it myself, I have grown increasingly cynical about its motivations, its honesty, and its adherence to laws and regulations. If we cannot rely on Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino to give us the truth, I don’t know what hope the American people may hold of ever having an honest government.
Given American citizens’ well-justified and deepening distrust of government, especially following James Comey’s and Christopher Wray’s abominable directorship of the FBI, we need complete transparency of events surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Don’t delay, Mr. Patel and Attorney General Bondi. Release the records now.
William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and non-profit sectors for 39 years. He is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc., and has been a contributor to Townhall, American Thinker, Epoch Times, The Federalist, American Greatness, and other publications. His work has been featured on CBS News 48 Hours and NBC News Dateline. (The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)