← Crime & Justice with Donna Rotunno
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- [00:04]
A
This is crime and justice. I'm Donna Rotuno outside the courthouse in Provo, Utah. We are here for day three of the Tyler Robinson preliminary hearing. Joining me today is FOX News correspondent Matt Finn, who's been at the courthouse all week doing some wonderful reporting. And one of my favorite co partners here, James Galeano.
- [00:26]
B
Perfect.
- [00:26]
A
Who's here today. The Italian should know how to say that. James. And James is a retired FBI agent. He's a FOX News legal contributor. He works in a supervisory role at the FBI. And he's going to join us today also. So here we are, guys, in Provo. It's a little steamy. Yeah, we're a little warm here. But we're going to do this and we're going to let everybody know what's going on.
- [00:46]
C
So, Matt, cheers to America's 250th birthday. Get 20% off your first purchase at foxnewswineshop.com with code FNRADIO 2020% discount excludes wine club offers and cannot be combined with any other promotion. Expires July 31, 2026. Must be 21 order to order. Please drink responsibly.
- [01:01]
A
Why don't you bring us up to speed as to where we are today on day three of this preliminary hearing?
- [01:06]
D
Well, a short while ago, we got this new video that appears to show Tyler Robinson in a holding room at the Washington County Sheriff's office near St. George, Utah. This is all new video that I had not seen before. What's interesting is it shows him again in that maroon T shirt, which has been highly talked about. We saw that new video yesterday that shows him in the same or apparently the same maroon T shirt on the campus of UVU before, during and after the murder of Charlie Kirk. The president's son, Donald Trump Jr. Has been here. He noted on FOX News earlier today that Tyler Robinson was not a student at that campus. So he really had no reason to be there morning, noon and night the day of Charlie Kirk's murder. I'm in television. So video we're always looking for. And there's been a lot of very compelling video that's come out.
- [01:50]
A
Yeah, there really has. And looking what's going on inside the courtroom today. Let's talk a little bit about before I get to you, James, let's talk a little bit about the way the defense has been acting. There's like more obstructionist behavior, I think, today in the quorum with regard to objections videos. I mean, I'm watching what happened this afternoon and I'm thinking this is something you should have done long before today. So bring me up to speed on what's going on there.
- [02:14]
D
Well, you're the attorney, so you can really help us out how this happens. But they have been objecting every step of the way. Right? Object, object. Trying to limit anything being seen by the public or by the television cameras. The judge has withheld a lot of the more graphic video. He's watched it for himself or people inside of the courtroom have been able to watch it, but he's not been, not been allowing it to be broadcast, which is understandable. But we have been able to see some of this new video that places Robinson at the scene yet again today. As we were about to watch the new video of Robinson in the holding room. And then now they're starting to talk about this Lance Twigs video, which may be explosive, Right. Because this is the roommate and lover of Tyler Robinson. It's apparently a video which he talks at length with police. Out of nowhere, the defense gets up and says, can I talk to the state? And then the defense mentions something about retractions in the, I believe in the transcript coming from Lance Twigs. And then the state goes, you know what? This caught us off guard. This is a surprise to us. And this, we thought we had this figured out. Right. And so now we're in a break. I'll see what happens.
- [03:19]
A
And I agree. I mean, today they didn't start court until one o' clock local time. So they only had a half, half of a day today to do this. And they knew exactly what evidence was coming next. They knew the order of the witnesses. The state let everybody know how many witnesses they were going to call. So it wasn't a surprise to the defense. But for the defense to now say, we tendered a transcript that we've redacted. They've had multiple pretrial hearings about this case. Right, James? I mean, for weeks. And this is something that should have been flushed out long before today. And the judge started the day today talking about, we have to get this done. Right. I gave you ample time. I mean, you've been involved in how many preliminary hearings in your career is this unusual for a preliminary hearing to last this long?
- [04:02]
B
Yeah, I'm surprised. And we've been following this from day one. How they get this done by Friday, close of business at 5 o', clock, I don't know. Especially with all the procedural maneuvering that took place today. I'm like, this is just not going to happen. But that wasn't the only thing that was dropped, right? At the beginning of today at 1 o'. Clock. The other thing was the defense named that their next two witnesses are both going to be Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms employees. So, you know, we're going to move from DNA and challenging that to move to ballistics and challenging that.
- [04:34]
A
And we saw a little bit, and I know, Matt, you reported on this. We saw a little bit of this when the defense filed their briefings with the court and really wanted everybody, all of us, to jump up and say, oh, wait, there's not a match. And it was very misleading. Right. What, what they filed. And I'm sure that's what they're going to try to go into on the stand. And that's when the prosecutors responded. And then there was the gag order argument. And so all of these things have taken place, but it looks like what they are trying to do is poke holes in these pieces of evidence. But talk to me about whether or not this is the appropriate time to do this. It's one thing to do it, but is this the right time to do it?
- [05:12]
B
Yeah, and you've corrected me a couple of times. And you're right. You know, in law enforcement, we call a preliminary hearing a mini trial. And you keep saying it's not a trial. That is what we're witnessing right now. As you pointed out before, your concerns were the state should not show too much of its hand. I'm going to challenge and say I think the defense is showing too much of theirs.
- [05:31]
A
Yeah. And I think when we say mini trial, it's true. Right. In some ways and maybe in, in correct in others. But it's true because we're watching a similar proceeding and we're watching pieces of evidence that we would eventually see at trial. But the standard is different. The amount of evidence you need is different. The way you can call witnesses is different. The way you bring in evidence is different. So in that way it's. It is different. So, you know, when people say, oh, you're there for the trial, it's like, no, we're here for the preliminary hearing. And then you want to explain that that's probably too technical, frankly, and nobody cares. Well, Matt, let's talk about the way the judge appeared this afternoon. I thought this was the first time that he seemed a little bit annoyed. Right. Like, almost like, wait. He's been very deferential to the defense. I think he's been very concerned about being fair. He wants to make sure that there's no issues with regard to due process for Tyler Robinson, which he should but there's also a point where maybe you go overboard. And I think today maybe he reached his limit. Well, how did you take the sort of the mood in the courtroom today?
- [06:34]
D
Well, we're all gearing up for that video from Lance Twigs.
- [06:37]
B
Right.
- [06:38]
D
I mean, this is someone who was intimate and very close with Tyler Robinson. You know, it could be dramatic what he has to say. And so we were getting ready to potentially hear or see that video with Lance Twigs. The defense gets up and almost interferes with. With a lot of questioning coming from the state. And it's been established that there's some type of retraction. Right. And the judge, they went back and forth, and I think he ended up saying, look, I'm not going to tell you what to do here, but by this point in time, this should have been figured out.
- [07:06]
A
And I also think. And this judge won't do this because we've seen how he's been. But at any point during this hearing, this judge can say, I've heard enough. Finding a probable cause.
- [07:16]
D
Yeah, there you go.
- [07:17]
A
And I don't think he'll do it. I think he's worried about what would happen on appeal. And so I, I don't think he will do it. But he has the right to do that anytime he feels as if the threshold has been met. Right.
- [07:27]
B
He doesn't want this overturned on appeal. No jurist absolutely wants that. He knows he's dealing with defense attorneys who are capital murder trial experts. He's going to make sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. But, yes, the minimum level threshold here are their reasonable grounds to believe that offense was committed and the accused is the one that committed it. And if that's the case, like Donna, to your point, he could end this and say, I have enough here. I'm going to bound this over for trial.
- [07:57]
A
Yeah. And let's go back to the witnesses that the defense wants to call. So we know we're going to hear this VIDEOTAPE statement from Mr. Twigs. And the, the big contention. Before I get to you, let's go back to this real quick. The big contention with regard to that testimony in that transcript is that the defense was arguing today that the detective who was interviewing Twigs was basically giving him the answers. Right. He was saying, well, this, this says this. Right. And this is what. Yeah, that they're. They're. That's their argument that he was testifying and he's showing them documents. Well, this text message talks about this and he responds, yes, and this talks about this. And. But really, you don't even need that video. You can call the detective that was on the stand, Mr. Brian Davis from the Utah Bureau of Investigations, and he can say, during the course of the investigation, we spoke to Mr. Twiggs and Mr. Twigs told us A, B and C. And then he's cross examined and that's enough. So I'm wondering, are you getting a sense of why the state thinks it's so important to actually use that video rather than just have somebody testify that it happened?
- [09:08]
D
Well, my impression is you want to hear from the horse's mouth. Right. And we have not heard from him at all. In fact, I had a source down in Washington county last year when I was covering this who said that Lance Twigs immediately asked to be relocated. And my understanding is he wanted witness protection. And I was told that he got it as far away from St. George, Utah as he quickly could. So we have not seen from him or heard from him. And I think the prosecution probably thinks it would be great if the public can see or hear from this key witness. And I'm also curious, Don, the judge here, he has repeatedly said, look, I'm the magistrate here, I'm the fact finder here. Why is he pointing that out so repeatedly?
- [09:43]
A
I think he doesn't want to have the appearance that he is putting his finger on the scale in any way. Yeah, I think he just is worried about coming across as someone who's too pro one way or the other. And you know, you've been in courtrooms. How many court cases have you covered? You see how there are definitely some judges that take control of the courtroom. They look at it as, this is my home. Not only am I calling balls and strikes, but I'm calling decorum. I'm talking about time management. I think that there's usually a lot more managing by a judge than there's been in this case. I think he's kind of put up some ground rules, but every time there's a ground rule made and it seems like he's drawing a line in the sand, he's allowing them to go back and relitigate certain issues. So I think that that's part of it. I think he just doesn't want to seem as if he's pro one way or another. I mean, I think. I think that's probably what it comes down to. So let's go back to this ATF agent issue. So, as you said, we're dealing with DNA evidence that we've been talking about the last couple of days. And now the defense called one person from the FBI to talk about DNA. Why do you think they did that? Was it necessary? What do you think the point of it was? Talk to me about that. And then we'll kind of contradict that with.
- [11:01]
B
Yeah. So on the DNA end, you know, DNA is not a perfect science. It's a police science, obviously. It's just one extra layer that you have in there. And as we talked about this morning, you know, the first time the DNA was used to convict somebody was in 1986 in Britain. And I think we did it in the United States in 1987. It's a wonderful tool, but it can also be challenged on its validity and reliability. And how so? Well, the defense put up an FBI forensic analyst, and I'm scratching my head going, why are you doing this? Because she's perfectly laying out that on the trigger of the Mauser, the rifle that was, you know, apparently the one that Tyler Robinson used in this. In this assassination was Tyler Robinson's DNA. And on two other critical pieces of evidence, the tile that was wrapped around the rifle and a screwdriver that was used to reassemble the Mauser on the roof prior to the fateful shot had DNA on it. And I think the numbers, and I think I'm right on this. On the tile itself, 95% of it was Tyler Robinson's. Five percent was Lance Twigs, the roommate slash romantic interest. And on the screwdriver, I think it was 89% Tyler Robinson and 11% Lance Twiggs. That is fairly damning. Now, what the defense is going to look to do is going to put a little reasonable doubt in one juror's mind. There's no jury here. But when we get to trial to say we don't know for sure if it was Tyler Robinson, it could have been the roommates, and we can't convict Tyler Robinson.
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A
And now they want to put an ATF agent up to presumably talk about the ballistics.
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B
Yes.
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A
And now that we know from their filings previously.
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B
Yeah.
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A
What do you think they're going to want to get out of those?
- [12:38]
B
100% is this. I've dealt with so many murder cases where this gets challenged. When a bullet leaves the barrel of a pistol or a rifle, there are things called lands and grooves that are in the rifling on the barrel. They leave things called tool marks. Tool marks are important impressions, and they leave it on the actual round itself. Now, in this rifle, it's a rifle. It's a bolt action rifle. So the. There was no expended cartridge. The cartridges is left in the rifle, which the police subsequently found when they recovered the rifle. And the round itself, when it hit Charlie, when rounds hit your body, they go through soft tissue, they run into bones, they hit muscle, and they get deformed. And what could not be definitively determined in this case was it was a round that came out of that rifle. Now, all the ATF said was, it is inconclusive. But the defense. Now you are charged to rigorously and vigorously defend your. Your client. The defense is going to make hay. They're going to bring on. They probably won't be ATF agents. They'll probably be forensic analysts, and they'll say, you conducted these studies. What was it? And then she or he is going to go, they were inconclusive. And they go, that's my last question. Thank you. And sit down.
- [13:52]
A
Yeah. And at the end of the day, what we do know, though, is that it wasn't a.45, right. So, you know, again, these are these little pieces that one by one, maybe seem problematic, but when you look at the total, right, it's circumstantial evidence. And where does this road lead? And so we talk about this all the time. That's 5,000 cuts. Another thing I think that's been interesting is we watched him change clothes and we talked about the red shirt. Now, maybe he has the red shirt on when he goes to the. The police station. But at the time this murder was committed, we see that the person getting out of the same car, because everybody keeps saying, how do you know it's him? Well, they're attaching him to this vehicle that they can, you know, trace him to. It's very easy to say. It's hard to tell if that's him. But when you trace him from the car, then it makes sense that it's the same person, Right? And so they're talking about how you would be able to put a rifle down your pants, Right? And even Paul Morrow has said, you know, he's not bending. He. How can he bend his knee? Right. How can he bend his knee? And then Josh Ritter and I were talking earlier today about the fact that what people think is that he actually put it halfway up his shirt down his leg, which then allowed him to bend. It's like. Does that make sense to you as a weapons person? Who knows about weapons?
- [15:04]
B
100%. So the Mouser. Now, this is a World War I, World War II weapon. It is an antique and a relic. Breaks down into four parts. You got a stock you got the barrel, you got the action, and you have the actual bolt. What could have happened is he had the smaller parts in the backpack that he was wearing and the two other pieces, instead of the rifle being this long, you now break them down into two pieces this way, you put them along your side. And as you see him coming down the steps, he did bend his knee at times, as Paul pointed out, so it didn't go beyond the femur and down to where the tibia and the fibula are, but he did strap it there. Easy to do, easy to conceal. The screwdriver then was used again. Two set screws, that's it. To reattach, it takes 30 seconds to do, and then he lays down the prone position and takes the fatal shot.
- [15:50]
A
And as a former law enforcement and still working in an advisory form, how bizarre is it that he was able to get up on the top of that rooftop and to dial Trump jr's point, because he talked about it this morning on the Fox Channel about how he was able to do that without anybody realizing that maybe that would be a risk. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, we don't want to come down on security or what they did or didn't do, but in order to make sure this never happens again, we have to talk about it, audit this. And so talk to me about that and how you think something like that happens.
- [16:26]
B
I think that in the first day's testimony. So we know that there was a Utah Valley University campus police officer that testified and he kind of walked through the spatial alignment of the, of the campus and kind of laid the foundation as the case builds, as the state builds this case. I was struck by this as a former FBI SWAT team leader, member of the Hostage Rescue team, site surveys and looking at the threat matrix prior to events, knowing all the online threats that TP USA and Charlie Kirk had undergone as they did this traveling event where they would go to college campuses and knowing this ahead of time to find out that There were only six campus police officers at an event where more than 1,000 people were anticipated and that there had been no real coordination. I'm not suggesting that a phone call didn't go in, but that there was no real coordination. Where you had members of the state police there or even federal partners, I think is unconscionable.
- [17:27]
A
Yeah, it truly is. And the fact that people could see him up on that roof, I mean, you've reported on it. They could see him. I don't know if they thought it was a secure security person, because who thinks that you're going to get away with being on the top of that roof like that. I mean, it's just a huge, huge fail.
- [17:43]
D
And he did. And, you know, I mean, when I'm out in public anymore, or especially on a campus, you assume you're being surveilled at all times. You're on video. When you're neighborhoods, you're on ring cameras. But look at Nancy Guthrie too. Right. How many months later, and we still don't even have an image of a car. Right. So that person got out of that neighborhood, got across that town without being captured on video down there. So this is one of those, like, perfect scenarios where this guy got up and off that roof so quickly and. And maybe no one spotted him or no one was really alarmed by it.
- [18:09]
A
Yeah, Matt, let's go back to. Because again, everybody is. It's very compelling to see not only what Tyler Robinson did, but there's some talk in the courtroom. There's been some evidence that he spoke to someone at Chick Fil A. He went to Chick Fil A. He maybe even spoke to somebody from Turning Point usa. Talk to us a little bit about that because I think that's pretty interesting too.
- [18:30]
D
Yeah. You know, again, being at the scene before, during and after the murder is. Is very compelling. So the law enforcement officer testified that he casually arrives to campus in the morning wearing the shorts and that maroon T shirt, is just walking around and apparently or allegedly interacted with Turning Point USA representatives in that center square area. So I don't know, was he scouting? Was he trying to, you know, double confirm that Charlie Kirk was going to be there that day? I mean, we assume he was. It was heavily announced and planned, so maybe casing the place. Right. One last sweep and looking at it and very casual, not seeming too, too nervous at all, leaves and comes back. Now he's ready to go. He's got the long pants on, the long T shirt on, and perhaps the gun. So, you know, from the outside looking in, it looked like he was putting together his final plan.
- [19:17]
A
And how stupid is it that if this really is him and they prove that it's him, that when he turns himself into the police, he decides to put on the same shirt he had on when he first went to that campus? I mean, I've had issues like this in court before and they are good moments to expose, but again, is this something that they're going to really be able to expose now that we're watching all of this?
- [19:38]
C
Yeah.
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A
You know, out play out before a
- [19:41]
B
trial you know, you've dealt with it in the. In the criminal justice system. You've certainly dealt with it, you know, covering it, and I have. Criminals always think they're smarter than the rest of us, and there are no perfect crimes. This is not 1881 where Jack the Ripper gets to go around London and never gets caught all these decades and centuries later because police sciences and technology, to your point about the cameras, have evolved so much in this instance, I think it's also interesting to note that the last time that this non student, because he did not go to Utah Valley University, this non student, the last time he was on campus was after the shooting, he actually returned. And I can't tell you, Don, you've probably dealt with this, too. How many times were serial murderers or murderers will return to the scene of the crime? And in this instance, we know he was trying to recover from the rifle that he'd left there because he was convinced. And he told Lance Twigs, if I get that rifle, they've got no evidence. And unfortunately, he was, or fortunately for the good guys, he was not able to get that rifle back.
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A
And let's talk about that rifle, because he left it in a wooded area with a backpack. Why would he do that? Do you think he was afraid of
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B
it once he moved into the neighborhood? Because you'll remember, as he goes up and he goes painstakingly to secrete the rifle on his body, it's been disassembled, gets up onto the rooftop, takes about 30, 45 seconds, maybe a minute to assemble. It takes a faithful shot. In his haste to leave, he leaves behind the screwdriver. Major mistake. It's got his DNA on it. Right? Then he jumps off the building, and we see that he's holding something. He didn't have time to disassemble the weapon. It's just wrapped loosely in the towel. Again, DNA is on that. So now as he's running, he's going, I've got to go. Get off campus, get into a neighborhood to secrete myself. I. I can't be seen carrying this. He put it down, thinking he'd be able to come back and get it later.
- [21:31]
A
And when you think about it, too, the screwdriver is really a great piece of evidence to help us explain the breakdown of this gun, right? And then you. You can say, okay, now I know why he could bend his knee. Right? So again, these are these little pieces of evidence that maybe independently don't tell us much. Death by a thousand cuts.
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C
Right?
- [21:49]
A
Death by a thousand cuts, Right. We Were talking about it as a pun puzzle. Right. And you just keep adding pieces of the puzzle and you're just, you know, every piece is another. Makes. Makes the bigger picture. So, I don't know, it's just. It's really interesting to see how this whole thing is going to play out. I'm still wondering in terms of this preliminary hearing, if part of the reason to do this, and, you know, again, because the defense didn't want cameras, but yet they're putting all this evidence out there, they're putting their own witnesses on that they don't have to do. Part of me wonders if this is a way for them to say, this is what we could do. This is how we're going to try to counter this. Let's let the public see this. The jury that they're so afraid of tainting. Right. They're trying to taint. Right. That's what they're trying to do. Because otherwise there's no reason to put these witnesses on. Do you think, both of you, do you think that that has anything to do with them hoping they can get the death penalty off the table and this becomes a plea? Let me come to you first look
- [22:45]
D
at the University of Idaho murders.
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C
Right.
- [22:46]
D
We waited for years for that trial. And in the final moments, that plea happened so absolute. Absolutely showing the cards that they have in their hand. And a lot of it. A lot of legal analysts think everything so far has been pretty damning. Yeah.
- [22:57]
A
Yeah, I agree. What do you think?
- [22:58]
B
I agree 100%. I think right now, you know, he's having an uncomfortable conversation. The accused, Tyler Robinson, with his defense team, because a key component of their defense is going to be to cast doubt that it was him that did this, or could it have been the roommate? And he's going to fight to say, no, I don't want to put him in that way. And they're going to tell him. It's the only way that you've got any chance, knowing that they've got to play this thing out or as Josh says, sandbag this thing. And I think they'll ultimately look for a plea if they can get the death penalty off the table.
- [23:31]
A
And speaking of the roommate and the DNA, do you think that that commingling of the DNA is enough to raise reasonable doubt?
- [23:40]
B
If you put Johnnie Cochran in front of the jury? There's a possibility. I've seen everything.
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C
Yeah.
- [23:46]
A
Yeah. You never know what a jury's going to do.
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B
You never know.
- [23:48]
A
And that is something you always have to worry about. And maybe that's another reason. I mean, again, we've seen it in other cases where they say, we're just worried. Let's talk about Mangione in New York. Right. I think that's a huge concern. You get one or two jurors who are sympathetic to the Mangione ideology, and you're worried. So do you think that that's something that could happen here? Somebody who thinks, you know what? This kid was right. Charlie Kirk is against what I believe, and so therefore he had a right to do this, this killing culture that we live in.
- [24:16]
D
Yeah. And the defense addressed yesterday that. That statement from the Turning Point USA official talked about Charlie's faith and politics. And the defense says, this is not a trial about religion. And we don't want anybody from the jury pool to read this note and come in here thinking one way or another about religion. Right. And that is probably going to be intertwined in this whole case alone, aside from politics. So that's a whole nother angle that could taint the jury pool.
- [24:40]
A
Well, especially because we're in Utah.
- [24:41]
D
Right? Yeah, exactly.
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A
And we're not in New York City.
- [24:43]
D
Right.
- [24:44]
B
And I'll add to this. This is not an epidemic. It's a pandemic of Gen Z shooters. Tyler Robinson was 22 when this event happened on September 10th of 2025. He's 23 years old now. But you go back from Luigi Mangione, you go back to Butler, Pennsylvania, and the three or four attempts on the president's life and a number of others where you have these Gen Z shooters. And to your point, Donna, it's assassination culture. You take a grievance, something triggers you that grievance. You apply an intractable ideology, just like Luigi Mangioni, and then you apply your own patina of moral absolutism. And that takes a supposedly normal person to go, this is a righteous killing. Yeah.
- [25:29]
A
Right. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, you know, you have to worry about that, I think less here. I mean, we're in a red state. This is a pretty religious area. But again, Charlie Kirk was killed in a red state in a religious area. So there's always going to be people that are part of the jury pool that maybe don't share this ideology. And they made such a big deal in the courtroom yesterday with regard to this statement regarding faith and that how. That the whole point was, it's not what Charlie Kirk believed, it's what they can prove that Mr. Robinson disagreed about what? Right. But I'm thinking, I don't know, you bring A rifle to the place where the guy is speaking. Speaking. And right then and there, that probably tells me that you didn't like something about them. Pretty much. So I just thought that they, they spent a lot of time highlighting something that they wanted to minimize, and then in the end, they end up highlighting it.
- [26:18]
B
Yeah. And it's. It's interesting. You know, how many times have we come across this in cases you've covered or that you've defended or prosecuted or investigated. The fact that for a lot of folks in the public, they believe that to. To make a murder case, you have to have a body, you have to have a murder weapon, and you have to prove a motive. You don't need any three of those, and we have those in abundance. This case could be made on circumstantial evidence alone.
- [26:43]
A
Yeah, I agree. And they have so much more than that. I mean, especially when you have the words of Tyler Robinson himself. Right. So I don't know, what do you think we're going to see tomorrow? Or what do you think is going to happen the rest of the day today? They're still in a break, I think. I haven't gotten any notice that they're not.
- [26:58]
D
It seems like they've been. Might have been gearing up to play the audio or the video of Lance Twigs, although we just keep getting these delays. So we still have that law enforcement officer on the stand. He'll probably continue testifying, but he had, he's given us a lot of insight about when Tyler Robinson turned himself in. That state agent said that he interviewed the mother, he talked to the mother, others talked to the father. A big question is, did the mother or father say on the record, I believe my son killed Charlie Kirk and or my son told me that he killed Charlie Kirk? Because that's going to dismay a lot of the conspiracy theorists out there. What more mother or father would turn their child unless they were certain or felt like they were certain that he did it?
- [27:33]
A
And I don't know how that doesn't, you know, dismay the conspiracy theories now, because the parents walked in with him and with that Mike Mitchell. So Mike Mitchell is a friend of the family who was a former sheriff, I believe, and he was there. I guess he was his Boy Scout
- [27:46]
B
leader or something like that.
- [27:47]
A
He brought him in and he spoke to the police that day, and Brian Davis told us that Mr. Mitchell spoke to them. So I don't know. It's going to be very interesting. And again, these are not things that we need to hear at this preliminary hearing. My Feeling is they've established at least enough at this juncture. So we'll see. We still have two more days of this. We'll see if the judge keeps anybody later today. They have, what, about an hour left today.
- [28:12]
B
Aren't you interested to figure out what the redactions are? What could, possibly. Could. So we know that McBride was the agent that interviewed Lance Twigs. And in that interview, what the defense is accusing is that you were leading the witness. Right. You were essentially testifying as the agent because you're taking those chat messages where he admits it.
- [28:33]
A
Right.
- [28:33]
B
The roommate asked him and he admits it on there. And you're reading it to him. And then Twigs is agreeing that that's what happened there. And they said they're comfortable with having this released with certain redactions. What could those redactions be?
- [28:45]
A
Everything that they don't want us to hear. Right. Everything. Damaging sheet. Well, I mean, they said it's 22 to 26 pages of reverend actions. I mean, it has to be the most damaging evidence. It has to be everything that Tyler Robinson told Mr. Twig. Right. That. That's what it has to be. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. Now, one other question in regard to jurisdiction, and I'm going to ask you this. This is obviously a state prosecution. We're in state court, but this could have been a federal prosecution, given the aggravating factors. Right. I mean, I think that it could have been. So tell me why you think it was a state prosecution rather than federal?
- [29:21]
B
Okay, so the top charge here. So we know he was charged with obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Those are the lower charges. Still bad, but lower charges. The top charge was aggravated murder. What makes a murder aggravated? Well, there's some type of heinousness or depravity attached to it. Some type of severity, cruelty, all those kind of adjectives to describe it. Why wouldn't the feds have taken this? I asked myself that. It's a political assassination. I'm sure sometimes the states will want to hang on to it. And remember, for the FBI to investigate a murder, it has to be attached to something else as part of a RICO investigation. A racketeering influence, corrupt organization like, think the mob or violent street gangs. The FBI typically doesn't have jurisdiction over a murder case. The state does. And in this instance, the state didn't go, hey, FBI, it's a red state, remember? Hey, FBI, you take this on and the FBI is there to help. Today we heard FBI 50 times. Why? Well, we heard the testimony about the FBI agents being involved in the interviews. People call them interrogations, but they're interviews of Lance Twiggs, Tyler Robinson and the parents and the spiritual advisor, the Boy Scout leader that was associated with Tyler Robinson. The second was the Evidence Response Team. So you think CSI Miami, everybody knows what crime scene investigations are. The FBI's top tier crime scene folks are the evidence Response Team. And they were the ones that went to the house, to Lance Twiggs and Tyler Robinson's house. So we are in an advisory capacity, we are in a supportive role, but we cannot come in as the thousand pound gorilla and say, we're taking this on.
- [30:59]
A
Well. And you know what? I wrote my notes from watching today, I wrote on the top law enforcement working together.
- [31:05]
B
Yes.
- [31:05]
A
And I found that it was very refreshing, actually to watch these officers testify the way they did, because we've not seen the same in Arizona with Nancy Guthrie and the sheriff there, A Tale of Two Cities. It really is. It's very interesting to see that. And I just thought it was kind of refreshing to see that everybody worked together. I thought that Agent Brian Davis was a very good witness. The little bit we got to see of him, he was confident. He didn't seem to be concerned about any questions that were going to be asked of him. Yesterday, I did find the two witnesses to be a little more unsure. I think they're nervous. You know, this is a tough. Did you feel a difference in the courtroom today between the types of testimony that we were hearing?
- [31:45]
D
If Davis is on the stand today? I think he was very assured and like you said, working together. He said, I got a call that night saying, get down there. He got on a plane and got down there. And then I'm very curious to hear what the mom and the dad said on record.
- [31:56]
A
I think so, too. Well, we're going to find out whether it's later today or tomorrow. We'll bring it to you on our next podcast. I cannot thank both of you enough for joining me in this heat. It's hot out here. Everybody but everyone's expertise, everybody's working really hard together out here and I'm really happy that we can bring it to the podcast. So thanks.
- [32:13]
B
Thanks for having us.
- [32:13]
A
Thanks for joining me. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Crime and Justice. Remember, we want to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, questions or theories, and we will answer them on air.