Jonas E. Alexis
The Unz Review

Utah Valley University has recently released an independent report that wrecks the narrative TPUSA has promoted for a little more than a year regarding the death of Charlie Kirk. If you are an investigative journalist and have the time to work your way through the 158-page document, it is well worth reading. I have included the link here.

Here is the summary: UVU staff and departments made several attempts to contact TPUSA officials, including Dan Flood, about the event where Kirk was later gunned down. UVU also warned TPUSA about the risks of holding the event outdoors in the university’s Fountain Courtyard. According to the report, TPUSA staff did not respond to numerous messages regarding the event. UVU staff warned that the outdoor location would make the event more difficult to control and proposed an alternative venue that would have provided better crowd management, including greater ability to monitor who entered and left the area and to maintain a clearer understanding of what was happening at the event.

But there is more. TPUSA chose the outdoor Fountain Courtyard as the location for the event. UVU Police Chief Jeff Long also reached out to TPUSA staff, particularly Dan Flood, Kirk’s private security adviser, and asked to meet to work out the event’s logistics. According to the report, however, no one responded to his calls.

UVU also asked TPUSA to provide an estimated attendance figure for the event. Because TPUSA controlled the ticketing, the university expected the organization to provide that information, but TPUSA failed to do so. Interestingly, much of the social-media coverage of the report has focused on the recommendations it makes to the university for future events while largely overlooking several key findings. Among them is the university’s repeated warning that holding the event in the outdoor Fountain Courtyard would make crowd management more difficult. TPUSA nevertheless chose that location.

The report also indicates that when TPUSA representatives, including Dan Flood, finally responded, they did so only “a few days before and the morning of the event.” The report states: “Neither Flood nor [Maycee] Crofts responded to phone calls or voicemail messages. In Flood’s case, the Project Team also sent a certified letter.” And there is more:

“The Project Team reached out to Brian Harpole, who was identified as the leader of the Integrity Solutions security team working with TPUSA to provide executive protection for TPUSA CEO Charlie Kirk. The Project Team attempted to reach Harpole by telephone and certified letter. The certified letter explained the purpose of the outreach and provided the Project Team’s contact information. The Project Team did not receive a response.

“The Project Team further contacted senior-level staff members at TPUSA in Phoenix seeking assistance in connecting with Dan Flood and Maycee Crofts. The Project Team did not receive a response to those email and telephone outreach efforts.

“The Project Team also reached out to the then-head of the UVU TPUSA Club, who invited Charlie Kirk to speak at UVU. The Project Team sought his insights and perspectives regarding planning for the September 10 TPUSA event. He did not respond to the Project Team’s various outreach efforts, which included a certified letter seeking his cooperation.

“A Utah risk management official had communications with an executive of TPUSA and urged that the above-named individuals who were associated with TPUSA on September 10, 2025 cooperate with this assessment by being interviewed by the Project Team. There was no response.”

There are also specific messages from the TPUSA UVU club president to the UVU Club Department asking about the Courtyard. The club president himself appeared confused because the directive was quite vague. It states: “My field representative for Turning Point USA has asked me to reach out to the UVU Club Department to ask about availability on hosting an event on the Courtyard on September 10 from 9am-4pm. She [sic] being quite vague on what this event is, so unfortunately this is all the information I have in regards to it.”

Whether social media commentators like it or not, these facts raise serious questions about what can reasonably be described as deliberate negligence. The university made repeated efforts to contact TPUSA, sought to address security concerns, requested logistical information, and even attempted to arrange meetings with TPUSA representatives. Yet, according to the report, those efforts repeatedly went unanswered. That is not a minor detail.

The findings also decimates a central point Andrew Wilson made during his debate with Candace Owens: that if anyone had reached out to TPUSA in good faith, the organization would have responded. The report documents multiple attempts by UVU officials to establish communication with TPUSA before the event. Nothing was more important than Charlie Kirk’s safety on the day of the event. And if anyone had a direct institutional interest in ensuring that Kirk was safe while he was on university property, it was Utah Valley University.

Wilson’s argument was already on life support, but the release of the report appears to have dealt it a potentially fatal blow. If UVU staff and the university’s police chief were unable to obtain timely responses from TPUSA representatives despite repeated attempts to establish communication, what basis is there for assuming that TPUSA would readily answer serious questions about Charlie Kirk’s death to Andrew Wilson or any serious investigator or reporter?

More importantly, how did Andrew Wilson, who was not publicly involved in the university’s months-long efforts to obtain answers, arrive at the conclusion that TPUSA would have responded if approached in good faith? Should Wilson’s assertion be treated as more authoritative than the findings of the independent UVU report, which independently interviewed more than 70 people, including university leadership, faculty, staff, students, UVU Police Department personnel, and external public-safety partners with knowledge of the event and its related operations? Is the report lying, or is it simply mistaken about these matters? And if Andrew Wilson believes the report is wrong, is he—the man who spends much of his time behind a computer, smoking and drinking while debating so-called “leftists” and OnlyFans personalities—really claiming that he possesses the definitive truth? And if he believes he somehow has access to a truth that others lack because of their so-called “conspiracy theories,” how did he obtain that information? What are the parameters by which he determines what constitutes truth and what he dismisses as conspiracy? Or does he mean to argue that TPUSA’s account should be preferred over the findings of an independent report?

Moreover, Andrew Wilson must know that TPUSA requires its employees to sign nondisclosure agreements.[1] So, to what extent can an organization claim to be acting in good faith while requiring its employees to accept contractual restrictions on what they may disclose publicly? Obviously, Andrew Wilson is out of his depth as a polemicist, and his handling of the matter is not aging well.

What, then, is the conclusion of this entire episode? At the very least, the documented failures surrounding the event warrant a serious investigation into TPUSA’s role and whether its actions or omissions constituted deliberate negligence. This is not an argument for a conspiracy theory, nor is it an attempt to portray TPUSA as the sole party responsible for the security failures surrounding Charlie Kirk’s death. There is no way any person with an ounce of common sense can simply dismiss the report, even as TPUSA continues to bury its head in the sand by attempting to sue UVU for negligence.[2]

The appropriate response here is not to declare TPUSA guilty of murder. It is to insist that every relevant party’s actions and omissions be thoroughly investigated, including whether any individual or organization bears legal responsibility for preventable security failures. That is how the legal system should work, but somehow TPUSA staff—and Erica Kirk in particular—continue to be sheltered under the label of “the grieving widow.”

As part of the investigation, I would also subpoena people such as Frank Turek, who attended a meeting with Israeli officials, along with others, the night before Kirk’s death. Turek has said that Kirk was not actually moving away from the Israeli narrative but was simply asking questions about how to respond to critics of Israel. Frankly, it is difficult to believe that Turek was unaware of the broader context. Long before that meeting, Kirk had publicly questioned the Israeli government’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. The issue appeared important enough to Kirk that he reportedly went to the White House and urged Trump not to involve the United States in a war with Iran, arguing that Israel was pushing America toward an unnecessary conflict.

Kirk later made similar points in his conversation with Megyn Kelly. Then came the meeting at the Hampton, where Jewish billionaires such as Bill Ackman confronted Kirk over his changing position on Israel. Given this history, Turek’s claim that Kirk was not moving away from the Israeli narrative deserves serious scrutiny. Turek is not that stupid. His presence at the meeting the night before Kirk was killed makes his account particularly relevant to any independent investigation. That does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing, but it does justify questioning Turek about what he knew, what was discussed at the meeting, and what he understood about Kirk’s changing position on Israel. Turek, after all, is a Christian Zionist who has denied that a genocide is taking place—or has taken place—in Gaza.

Charlie Kirk’s Transformation

Again, Kirk deserves considerable credit for challenging a political establishment that has exercised enormous influence over American politics for decades. It is important to remember that Kirk was raised within an evangelical Zionist environment, a movement whose historical roots can be traced to the Protestant Reformation and whose supporters have generally expressed strong support for Israel. I will explore this subject in greater detail in a separate article, but it is worth noting at the outset that Christian Zionism has roots within the Protestant movement dating back to the era of Martin Luther.[3] In his 1523 tract That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, Luther essentially challenged the Catholic Church’s traditional position on the Jews. However, after becoming disillusioned with his efforts to convert Jews to his new form of Christianity, Luther published the deeply hostile and violent 1543 treatise On the Jews and Their Lies. Luther was unequivocal in his condemnation of the Jews and their property, writing explicitly:

“First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them… Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed… Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them… Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb… Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews… Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping… Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.”[4]

The first and second recommendations are unquestionably violent in nature. Since the publication of the treatise, Protestant scholars have repeatedly sought forgiveness from Jewish communities and, in some cases, attempted to argue that Luther was not literally advocating the destruction of synagogues.[5] Interestingly, Luther’s sixth recommendation—that Jews be prohibited from practicing usury—echoes a longstanding position of the Catholic Church, the very institution he fiercely condemned, at times referring to it in terms such as the Whore of Babylon, the Antichrist, and the viper of all vipers. In any event, in the 18th and 19th centuries, J. N. Darby and C. I. Scofield took the issue to the next level, placing the Jews above just about everything else, which culminated in Dispensational Theology and End Times Rapture.[6] Darby did not invent an entirely new system, although he sometimes gave that impression. Rather, he systematized an existing stream of Protestant eschatological ideologies that had been developing since the time of Martin Luther. The modern state of Israel quickly capitalized, weaponized, and even financed these movements, as in the case of John Hagee and TPUSA.[7] Moreover, intelligence agencies have a long history of infiltrating religious organizations and movements through financial resources and other incentives to advance their interests, including Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim groups.[8]

Rob McCoy, who has been described as a supporter of Israel, was Charlie Kirk’s pastor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirk received substantial support from evangelical churches and was invited to speak at a number of them, particularly when other venues were unavailable because of pandemic restrictions. Kirk and McCoy were almost inseparable: “The two of them started Turning Point Faith together in 2021, holding events in church, working to organize pastors and mobilize conservative Christians.”[9] Those churches therefore provided Kirk with important platforms at a time when opportunities to speak publicly were limited. Those churches also benefited from Kirk’s charismatic presence and communication skills, as their membership grew during the same period. In that sense, the relationship was mutually beneficial.

Kirk was also closely connected to evangelical institutions such as Liberty University. Kirk and Jerry Falwell Jr., the university’s former president, who later left the position amid a sex scandal,[10] “co-founded a think tank called the Falkirk Center.”[11] Moreover, one of the earliest significant financial contributions Kirk received while launching TPUSA came from Foster Friess, who reportedly sent Kirk a $10,000 check when Kirk was still a teenager trying to establish himself as a political debater.[12]
Friess was a prominent supporter of Israel, making his early financial support an important part of the story of TPUSA’s beginnings.

Yet Kirk’s willingness to appear in those churches did not necessarily prevent him from later questioning or distancing himself from the pro-Israel political machine. That transformation or evolution is an important part of understanding his political and religious trajectory.

Concluding Thought

Charlie Kirk’s death deserves more than partisan defenses. It deserves a complete accounting of what happened, who knew what, what warnings were given, what actions were taken or not taken, and whether any of those failures contributed to the conditions that allowed the assassination to occur. The independent review by UVU is an important part of that record, but it should not stop there. History should not have to wait 25 years for documents to emerge before the public can determine whether warnings were ignored and whether people or organizations should have been held accountable.

The second issue that needs to be pointed out is that the narrative TPUSA—and possibly the Israeli government—has presented to the public may not age well. Moreover, the people who have represented TPUSA, and even the state, such as Andrew Wilson, may find that their political prospects are not as bright as they had hoped. My personal and speculative view is that Wilson may have been hired or paid by TPUSA to counter critics such as Candace Owens. If Wilson had succeeded in the debate, rather than suffering what I viewed as a humiliating performance, TPUSA might have brought him on for future projects. He could even have been promoted as a speaker on college campuses to debate so-called “leftists,” relying on rhetorical arguments rather than serious investigation. These are not wild claims. Spiro Floropoulos, a former insider at Andrew Wilson’s Crucible who supported and worked with Wilson for years, has publicly stated that Wilson was not acting in good faith.[13]

The third issue that needs to be addressed, as Max Blumenthal has already pointed out in his article about the organization, is this: How is it that Charlie Kirk, during the final months and weeks of his life, had serious disagreements with Jewish donors and the Israeli government, to the point of receiving threats, yet shortly after Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA has become closely aligned with Israeli interests and received substantial financial support from the very entity Kirk had questioned? And how can people continue to portray her simply as “a grieving widow” when, within days of Kirk’s assassination, she had become the public face of TPUSA, delivered major speeches, assumed a leadership role, and appeared at subsequent events?

Video Link

Notes

[1] https://turning-point-usa.breezy.hr/p/b1b53405edc8-field-representative-west/apply ?

[2] I hope TPUSA takes UVU to court, because litigation could compel both sides to produce documentary evidence and potentially require TPUSA to open its financial records. Such proceedings could bring significant information into the public record. So, if TPUSA believes the report is inaccurate, let them take UVU to court and make their case. I’ll be sitting back with some popcorn, waiting to see how they respond and whether, in the process, they end up publicly humiliating themselves. All it would take is for UVU to retain a competent attorney who understands the arguments and counterarguments involved, as well as the allegations surrounding TPUSA’s activities with Israel and other entities.

[3] For studies on these issues, see Robert O. Smith, More Desired than Our Owne Salvation: The Roots of Christian Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Donald M. Lewis, A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century (Downer Groves: InterVarsity Press, 2021).

[4] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 47, trans. by Martin H. Bertram (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 268, 269, 270, 271.

[5] For studies on this, see Rodney Stark, Reformation Myths: Five Centuries of Misconceptions and (Some) Misfortunes (London: SPCK, 2017); see also “Lutheran Church Formally Rejects Luther’s Anti-semitic Teachings,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 6, 1994.

[6] See Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Crawford Gribben, J. N. Darby and the Roots of Dispensationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024); Donald M. Lewis, The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

[7] For similar studies, see Timothy P. Weber, On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004); Yaakov Ariel, An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (New York: New York University Press, 2013); Victoria Clark, Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Samuel Goldman, God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018).

[8] For studies on this, see Michael Graziano, Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2021); Sylvester A. Johnson and Steven Weitzman, eds., The FBI and Religion: Faith and National Security before and after 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017); David A. Wemhoff, John Courtney Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition: How the CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Program Changed the Catholic Church (South Bend: Fidelity Press, 2015); Matthew Avery Sutton, Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War (New York: Basic Books, 2019).

[9] Daniel Silliman, “Died: Charlie Kirk, Activist Who Championed ‘MAGA Doctrine,’” Christianity Today, September 11, 2025. Despite of the evidence to the contrary, McCoy is still perpetuating that Kirk backed Israel to the end.

[10] Tom Murray, “God Forbid: Hulu documentary explores sex scandal that brought down evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr,” Independent, November 1, 2022.

[11] Silliman, “Died: Charlie Kirk, Activist Who Championed ‘MAGA Doctrine.’”

[12] Ibid.

[13] The actual interview starts in about 28 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv73mioBXU8
Video Link.