FIRST ON FOX: A high-ranking source is downplaying recent reporting about internal tensions between the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) over files connected to the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
The NCTC is part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), tasked with coordinating counterterrorism intelligence throughout the federal government.
Its director, Joe Kent, was recently looking into the assassination case, reportedly ruffling feathers among FBI leadership, including Director Kash Patel, who thought he was overstepping his duties and potentially interfering with the case against 22-year-old suspected assassin Tyler Robinson, according to The New York Times.
But the source told Fox News Digital that the tensions in the report were “exaggerated” and that there was no serious dispute between the agencies or their leaders.
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The FBI and the ODNI said in a joint statement they were not only working together, but also with federal lawmakers on a united front.
“The ODNI and the FBI are united in working with Congress to strengthen our nation’s counterintelligence efforts to best protect the safety, security and freedom of the American people,” they said.
As Kent was reportedly looking for ties to terror groups, including Antifa, Patel allegedly took issue with his digging, according to the report, leading to a meeting at the White House including the two of them, Vice President JD Vance and other top officials.
Robinson faces a slew of charges in Utah at the state level. The most serious is aggravated murder, which carries the potential death penalty. And while he has not yet been charged with a federal crime, Justice Department involvement remains a possibility.
Both the DOJ and FBI are known to say little about a case publicly until it is fully resolved out of concerns they could taint the prosecution. However, according to the Times report, there were internal concerns that looking into potential additional suspects or terroristic ties could help the defense.
One potential concern is that if officials at NCTC spoke about the case publicly, they would be less protective than the FBI or DOJ.
“I don’t think this would help the defense in any way,” said Donna Rotunno, a Chicago-based defense attorney and Fox News contributor. “If the agencies didn’t do this, the defense would attack them for not conducting a thorough investigation.”
She said even if investigators had found additional suspects, it wouldn’t change the case against Robinson.
“Does that really take away from the fact that this person is the alleged shooter? I think not,” she said.
Linda Kenney Baden, a legal analyst and defense attorney whose past clients have included Aaron Hernandez, Phil Spector and Casey Anthony, said Robinson’s defense may be more focused on avoiding the death penalty than proving his innocence.
“The defense has already started with mitigation not guilt, so assuming they found he was used by some outside group who identified him…so what?” she told Fox News Digital. “It doesn’t help his defense.”
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She pointed to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
“Oswald, [was] the shooter of JFK, but was he put up to it?” she said. “And yes, single loners can be destructive with a misplaced agenda, e.g., Unabomber.”
A spokesperson for the ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A sniper’s bullet fatally struck Kirk around 12:20 p.m. on Sept. 10, as he spoke to a crowd at Utah Valley University during a Turning Point event. Deputies arrested Robinson 33 hours later, more than 200 miles away, after his family and a minister convinced him to surrender, authorities have said.
In the interim, a task force of investigators from multiple agencies were working to identify and track down a suspect, ruling out other persons of interest and collecting evidence ranging from campus surveillance video to phone data and the suspected murder weapon, which police recovered in a patch of woods next to the school.
Police had an early potential suspect in custody, a 71-year-old local named George Zinn who allegedly falsely claimed to be the shooter. He is facing criminal charges of obstruction and sexual exploitation of a minor after police allegedly found child abuse images in his phone while questioning him.
They also investigated at least two other early persons of interest, law enforcement sources told Fox News Digital previously. Neither one was accused of wrongdoing or charged with a crime.
Nor have charges been filed against people Robinson allegedly confessed to after the fact — including his roommate and trans romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, or a group of Discord friends.
Authorities have said they believe Robinson acted alone but indicated that he had increasingly adopted left-wing beliefs in the year before the attack.
“Ultimately everyone wants justice here,” the source told Fox News Digital.
