“[Tyler] didn't like "hateful people" and "people who would talk down about others." He was upset by figures who seemed like bullies - who voiced prejudices against people based on their race or sex.”- statement from a former classmate.
One of my first posts on here, way back in September, was a compilation of quotes from people who actually knew Tyler and weren't just random neighbors. So I'm picking up where I left off with more quotes I found all over the internet. These will mostly be from his classmates, and I'll continue with people who didn't really know him in the next few posts. Though these aren't as insightful as the interviews with his actual friends, I still feel that they give us a window into his personality and political views.
Former classmates speaking to the Daily Mail
'I think most people would describe him as a little bit weird because he was kind of an oddball,' admitted classmate Gibson Wright. 'I'd say he still had a solid group of friends. He wasn't a complete loner. He was almost shy, very timid. We weren't close but I sat with him at lunch where he'd play video games.'
Indeed, a number of Tyler's classmates have spoken of his playing Super Smash Bros – a derivative of Super Mario – on the Nintendo Switch.
Writing anonymously via social media site Discord – where Robinson is alleged by prosecutors to have confessed his crimes to friends last week – one school friend recalled: 'We'd just sit at the table in school and eat lunch, talk and laugh about video games. Politics weren't on our minds at all.'
'They were a group of gamers,' added another classmate of Tyler and his friends. 'All they would do was sit down with their Nintendo Switches at lunch and play Smash Bros. That was almost every single day, like for their entire lunch. They also had silly little quirks like talking to each other in lisps and using friendly banter. "Shut your b**ch a** up" was their famous sentence. They would shorten it to SYBAU. A lot of them were neurodivergent.'
Other classmates recall how intelligent Robinson was, with one saying he was 'easily top ten in his class.'
USA Today
Xander Luke, 22, graduated in the same Pine View High School class of 2021 as Tyler Robinson and remembered him from several classes they had together.
Luke said he was scrolling TikTok on Sept. 12 when he saw Robinson’s mugshot and thought he looked familiar, then quickly realized the connection.
“I was floored,” Luke said. “Everyone from our class is shocked, but it started to make a little sense since he was politically active and outspoken about people’s rights.”
Luke said he and Robinson shared sentiments about government and political corruption and a view that the system in general was not solving the nation’s problems.
He described Robinson as deeply immersed in Internet and meme culture. He also had thoughts on the reported engravings on shell casings that police have described.
“From what I remember, his family was more conservative, but Tyler thought the entire system was out of place,” Luke told USA TODAY. “He thought both political sides were contributing to a country being in a worse place and not improving the world.”
Luke said he views those casual high school conversations through a different lens after the violence at Utah Valley University.
He said it was shocking to imagine that his former classmate could have “branched off from those beliefs into doing something like this,” Luke said.
Authorities in Utah have confirmed the identity of the suspect as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. The suspect is in custody.
(Archive)
Washington Post
Xander Luke, who was in Tyler Robinson’s class at Pine View High School, recalled Robinson as a good student who was into internet memes, video games and politics.
They had several classes together, and while they were not close friends, they would sometimes talk about their frustrations with both political parties, Luke, 22, said in an interview.
“We shared the same sentiments about how both the Democratic and the Republican party were both not very much for the interests of the people anymore,” he said. “They both just make promises and don’t really do anything and just stay in power.”
During most of their high school tenure, President Donald Trump was in his first term. Luke said Robinson didn’t like Trump but also wasn’t excited by Joe Biden, whose victory over Trump came during their senior year.
Luke added that Robinson didn’t like “hateful people” and “people who would talk down about others.” He was upset by figures who seemed like bullies — who voiced prejudices against people based on their race or sex, Luke said.
“We would have conversations every once in a while about our distaste about the way things had gone on in the world where people had become more hateful and our government hadn’t been helping us as much,” he said.
Robinson was quiet but passionate, Luke said.
“He was quite intelligent and would do well in school. I would say he was a good student,” Luke said. “He would pay attention. He wouldn’t talk a lot, but he wasn’t super out of the way. … He had friends. He was very normal.”
"In the conservative southern Utah city where Tyler Robinson grew up, neighbors and classmates described him as a reserved, intelligent young man raised in a Republican family who was deeply interested in video games, comic books and current events."
Keaton Brooksby
“It’s really sad that someone with his mind put it to that sort of use,” said Keaton Brooksby, 22, a former high school classmate of Mr. Robinson’s.
Mr. Brooksby said that Mr. Robinson was generally considered a quiet pupil when they were growing up in the conservative St. George area, but one day in high school, the topic of the 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, came up during lunch. Few there knew exactly what had happened, but Mr. Robinson was sure of himself.
“He gave us a whole spiel on what happened,” Mr. Brooksby said. “I just remember thinking, he’s got a lot of information on this for someone who’s 14.”
Mr. Brooksby [...] said the last time he saw Mr. Robinson was when they bumped into each other at a Walmart. Mr. Robinson seemed to have grown even shyer, appearing to not want to catch up.
Adrian Rivera
Adrian Rivera, 22, who had been in a high school woodworking class with him, said that Mr. Robinson would often hang around the area designated for the Junior R.O.T.C., or Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, with other students who were interested in the military program. It was unclear whether Mr. Robinson had actually been a member of the corps.
Mr. Rivera said that Mr. Robinson was a “massive Halo guy,” referring to the popular science fiction game, and that he also liked to play Call of Duty, and other shooter games.
Sam New
Sam New, 23, remembered a different video game, Minecraft, which Mr. Robinson, an introvert from a conservative family, played obsessively.
Mr. New said the news that Mr. Robinson had been arrested in Mr. Kirk’s shooting sent shock waves through the friend group that knew him from the game club. Mr. New canceled his plan on Friday as he and Mr. Robinson’s circle of high school friends took time to process Mr. Robinson’s arrest and check up on each other.
“He seemed to have not really have talked to as many people,” Mr. New said. “He lost contact with a lot of us.”
Jaida Funk
Jaida Funk, 22, who went to elementary and middle school with Mr. Robinson, said he was an excellent student — they were both in high honor roll together. In fact, she said, he had the personality of a teacher’s pet, always on time, respectful, hardworking, and smart.
“He’s the kind of kid that even if you are not friends, you’d ask him to be in your group project,” she said. “He’s someone you’d expect to get the award for perfect attendance.”
She said he was very into computers. He was not in the popular crowd but people liked him.
“The way he carries himself and speaks to others. I thought he’d be a C.E.O. or a businessman. He had good leadership qualities.”
Tyler Robinson appeared smiling in his portrait, flashing his teeth at the camera and appearing kempt in a plain blue T-shirt.
Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin Tyler Robinson was a quiet, but easygoing teen who gave no hint of violence during his high school years, former teachers told The Post.
Robinson, 22, got his hands dirty with his fellow classmates as a member of the auto mechanics club, Pine View High School yearbook photographs from the accused killer’s junior year show.
“He was an extremely smart individual and a very good student,” teacher Rich Hentosh said Saturday, adding Robinson “always made up his work and was very effective at his time management.”
Robinson elected to take the semester-long Basic Auto Class, an introductory-level technical class that taught students how to repair broken vehicles.
He was an average kid, said Hentosh, who emphasized the alleged future killer never showed any violent tendencies.
The class typically involved two students pairing up for each project, and Hentosh couldn’t recall Robinson ever struggling with other classmates.
“He kept to himself. Very pleasant, very respectful.”
The educator was “absolutely” shocked to learn Robinson was a suspect in Kirk’s murder.
“It’s very difficult, we all like to believe that we have an impact on these kids,” he said, adding, “I think we’re all stunned here in Utah.”
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Kids change,” he said, “and you gotta wonder how that happened.”
Canaan Timothy - Reuters
Canaan Timothy, 21, said he was in the year below Robinson at high school. Robinson, he said, was just a regular student with an interest in music, who hung out with members of the school band.
"I knew him in passing. Just your average kid," said Timothy, who lives two blocks from the Robinson family. "Tyler, he was quiet, but not too quiet."
NCTC chief looked into FBI Kirk files for “foreign involvement”: any truth to this?
The ideological fault line Joe Kent’s defection exposed this week is proving hard for the GOP to paper over.
If you’ve been online in the past day or so, you’ll probably have seen the news about National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) chief Joe Kent’s resignation. In his letter, Kent wrote that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. and that the war was a result of the Israel lobby. Soon after, he went on his ally Tucker Carlson’s show to discuss his resignation and brought up his attempt to look into the FBI’s files for the possibility of foreign involvement in Kirk’s assassination, essentially insinuating that Israel might have had a hand in his death. He claims that he had a “decent amount of leads,” though they weren’t “anything concrete,” but he was stopped by the FBI because they wanted to let Utah state handle the investigation. On the Megyn Kelly Show, he mentioned that one of his concerns was the online "transtifa" profiles who seemed to have foreknowledge of the assassination (something that's been thoroughly debunked).
This isn’t new information, fyi—way back in October, the New York Times published an article about Kent’s thwarted probe and his dispute with Kash Patel. And it’s coming up again not because there’s any particular merit to his allegations, but because he’s co-opting conspiracist doubts about CK’s death to earn goodwill from the Candace Owens/Tucker Carlson right. I don’t think this is anything more than a calculated attempt to jump ship before the schism over Israel in the conservative sphere widens. I'm pretty much certain Tyler did this alone. I’m going to briefly go over Kent’s background, the NYT article, and his interviews with Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly to explain how I’ve come to that conclusion.
Who is Joe Kent?
So Kent’s a warmonger, just like the rest of em. He’s been many things: a Green Beret in Iraq, a CIA paramilitary officer, sorely defeated rival of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, true blue MAGAt and Jan 6th supporter, COVID denier, loyal servant of Tulsi Gabbard. That is to say, he’s wack, not a principled politician by any means. He also credits Trump with defeating ISIS which is far from the truth to say the least. And he’s known for making claims about foreign intrigues that don’t seem to exist. In May last year, when assessments of possible links between the Venezuelan government and the Tren de Aragua gang revealed that there was no connection, he pushed analysts to amend the assessments to support Trump’s use of the claims to justify the deportations of alleged gang members.
Kent’s resignation, though he’s made it seem voluntary, is likely the result of a months-long FBI investigation into him due to suspicions that he was leaking classified information about Israel and Iran, according to Axios and Semafor. Officials alleged that he'd been sidelined and cut out of briefings with Trump. Obviously there's some kind of intrigue going on here, and it helps the Trump admin's agenda if they paint Kent's resignation as something done out of self-preservation instincts instead of genuine antipathy towards Israel and a war with Iran. But it's vital to remember that no one here is acting in good faith.
The October NYT report
Back in October, the New York Times reported that Joe Kent led an inquiry into FBI files to investigate whether Tyler had support from "someone else, a foreign power or another entity." He was given access to the files by a low-level FBI official. According to the NYT, the "counterterrorism center gathered material from intelligence agencies about potential foreign ties to Mr. Robinson and has also looked at foreign funding of people who identify with the far-left movement known as antifa."
These suspicions weren't anything new—before Tyler was identified, intelligence officials were already investigating the possibility of foreign involvement, taking note of the suspect's abilities and training. But since Tyler's arrest and the UCAO's opening of his criminal case, the FBI was concerned that Kent's efforts could interfere with the investigation, ultimately benefiting Tyler's defense.
The F.B.I. and the Justice Department generally keep tight control over evidence in criminal cases, particularly when they are preparing for a trial, in which government documents may have to be turned over to the defense and could be used to poke holes in the prosecution’s case.
While Mr. Robinson is currently facing only state charges, some administration officials were concerned that Mr. Kent’s efforts could provide fodder to defense lawyers, who could use the notion that more than one person was involved in Mr. Kirk’s killing to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors, said those aware of the matter.
There have also been longstanding tensions between the FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) led by Tulsi Gabbard. Kash Patel was alarmed by Kent's inappropriate intrusions on the FBI's responsibilities. Two White House meetings were held between the two agencies in the aftermath of Kirk's assassination, with the second one focusing on Kent's probe into the FBI files. But soon after the report, the FBI and ODNI released a joint statement that they were working together on a united front, and FBI sources said the claims about Patel's concerns were exaggerated.
So yes, I don't think the FBI is hiding evidence of foreign assistance to Tyler necessarily. This is a petty conflict between Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and Joe Kent. I do find it strange, though, that one of the main reasons given for stopping Kent's investigation is to protect the UCAO's case and avoid bolstering the defense. Because we now know that the FBI has not been cooperating with the prosecution team's requests to pass on forensic evidence, and that even the Utah State Bureau of Investigation has been kept in the dark. (The parties say both the FBI and ATF haven't been passing on info, but since Grunander only mentioned the ATF's promise to provide their entire case file, it feels like the FBI is the biggest problem here). Why is that? Are there issues with the evidence that they don't want the defense to find out about?
Tucker Carlson interview
In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Kent associates the Kirk assassination with the Trump assassination attempts and anomalies in the Thomas Crooks investigation. He brings up Kirk's stance against war with Iran and how he was being pressured by pro-Israel donors prior to his death—in other words, regular Kirkspiracy talking points.
Kent says he doesn't understand why the FBI wouldn't want the NCTC to look into foreign ties to Tyler. According to him, the NCTC sent out agents to work in the task force (with the FBI?) right after the murder, but that after the first week or so the task force was dispersed and the NCTC's access to the FBI files was cut off. The NCTC was eventually allowed to continue their investigation again, but their requests for data from the FBI were never fulfilled. The FBI told him that they were stopping his investigation because it was sensitive information and they wanted to turn everything over to the Utah state authorities.
What Kent found in his own words:
I didn't even say necessarily I believe there's 100% foreign ties. There were data points that we needed to investigate. I mean, I think anybody who's even, you know, looked at any kind of police investigation, you get a hundred leads, you run them down, and 99 don't mean anything. We still had a lot more leads to run down that pertain to some kind of a foreign nexus that we were stopped from investigating.
But what is this foreign nexus? Kent can't seem to point to anything specific beyond there being "people with prior knowledge." As in, the random Twitter and TikTok kids that coincidentally posted about wanting CK to die, as you do, and are obviously just random people who didn't know Tyler at all. (The one person they kept attacking for being Lance's "friend" is just some edgy kid who followed her after she was doxxed). It's ridiculous.
Carlson: Specifically, you may not know the answer, of the people who demonstrated prior knowledge of Charlie Kirk's murder online, and there were a number of them, are you satisfied that all of them were interviewed by the FBI in person?
Kent: I have no idea. I don't know. I just think considering they knew the guy, they knew Charlie was going to be assassinated and there was enough of them that it wasn't just some rando who, maybe he tags every TPUSA post with that. There was enough of them that there's something there. I don't know what that something is. Well, by definition, but we haven't seen any arrests. So to me, there's more work to be done and because they that could have been posted from anywhere that would be in the purview of the FBI, or NCTC or if they're overseas. And to me, I personally did not see any effort being taken to to continue to run that down.
Responding to the video, an official told Axios:
It's not a conspiracy. Kent has nutty ideas. We got the killer. And what we didn't need was a guy spinning alternate ridiculous theories about foreign death squads that the defense would use so the killer could go free.
Megyn Kelly interview
Kent says pretty much the same things to Megyn Kelly, but Kelly specifically brings up the "transtifa community's involvement," which Kent seems to agree with. She reads out several posts by the aforementioned randos as proof that transtifa "had the exact date and they had the exact manner that he would be shot and killed." To which Kent nods and says it would usually be the FBI's role to subpoena social media platforms to investigate these individuals.
So in conclusion? No, if the biggest concern Kent can point to is random social media profiles celebrating Kirk's death, I don't think there's anything more to this than just regular conservative infighting. Or maybe I'm wrong and Tyler is three Mossad agents in a trench coat. No doubt there's a lot of value to Kent resigning over the Iran war, that's a big hit to the Trump admin as evident from the huge numbers his resignation letter and Carlson interview have done. But there just isn't anything substantial here. Hate to side with the prosecution, but Tyler did this alone while in the throes of suicidal ideation.
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