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Facts Matter
ATF’s 'Inconclusive' Ballistics Report Being Used by Defense; Court Docs Reveal Alleged Hand-Written Confession by Robinson
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So, as a lot of you obviously know, Tyler Robinson is currently standing trial for the murder of Charlie Kirk, with the real potential of getting the death penalty over there in Utah. However, in a bit of a surprising twist in the case, late last month, at the very tail end of March, the Daily Mail broke a story in which they claimed that the bullet fragment that was recovered from Charlie Kirk's body did not match the rifle that belonged to Tyler Robinson. Now, that was obviously a very sensational headline. However, after reading through the actual court documents that came out, they reveal something a bit different and something a bit less definitive. Firstly, let me read to you what that Daily Mail article actually said, in part. The bullet that killed conservative commentator Charlie Kirk may not match the rifle used by suspected killer Tyler Robinson. A bombshell new court filing states Robinson's defense attorneys now argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson. Essentially, these court filings submitted by the defense, meaning the attorneys for Mr. Robinson, they alluded to a report from the ATF, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That ATF report itself has not been made public, but the part of it that was quoted in the court documents, it said that the bullet fragment recovered from the autopsy was compared to the rifle belonging to Mr. Tyler Robinson and that the result of the comparison was inconclusive. Now, very notably, that does not mean that the bullet did not come from the rifle. It could mean that, but it could also mean that the fragment that they were able to recover was too damaged. That can happen when the bullet breaks apart and the grooves are no longer intact enough to be able to compare them to any particular gun. This study here up on your screen from the NIH, it actually contains in it one analysis showing that roughly 51% of bullet comparisons have the results come back inconclusive like this. However, like any good attorney worth their salt, especially when you have a client facing the actual death penalty, the lawyer for Tyler Robinson jumped on this detail and she submitted a court filing which was in the form of a motion requesting the judge to have the case delayed while they try to get the full ballistics report in order to actually present it during the preliminary hearing, Quote, regarding the firearm evidence, the defense has been provided with an ATF summary report which indicates that the ATF was unable to identify the bullet recovered at autopsy to the rifle allegedly tied to Mr. Robinson. Although the state has not indicated an intent to produce this report at the preliminary hearing, the the defense may very well decide to offer the testimony of the ATF firearm analyst as exculpatory evidence, as these cases indicate. Determining the number of contributors to a DNA mixture and determining whether the FBI and the ATF reliably applied, validated and correct scientific procedures is a complicated process which requires the assistance of various types of experts, including forensic biologists, geneticists, system engineers, and statisticians, all of whom must review and evaluate several categories. And then, also ATOP this missing ATF report, the attorneys for Mr. Robinson also claimed to have received over 20,000 files, including over 61,000 pages of documents, 31 hours of audio, as well as 700 hours of video footage. And they said that it would take them at least two months to be able to go through all that, even one time. And they're therefore trying to push back the date of the preliminary hearing back several months, which actually makes the question of whether this ATF report will come back in time more important now, I guess you can say, than ever, quote, the preliminary hearing itself is not a trial. It's the moment prosecutors must demonstrate sufficient cause to proceed that makes the ATF report strategically critical right now. If the defense can successfully use it to cast doubt on the state's physical evidence package at this early stage, the downstream implications for a capital case are significant. Although zooming out a little bit and looking at the broader picture, because prosecutors in this case still have the DNA evidence, because they have those alleged text messages between Tyler and his boyfriend, as well as testimony from his parents, the ATF report is not the end all be all. But as any good defense attorney would do, Tyler's lawyers are trying to use these murky findings to secure their client either a not guilty verdict or. Or at the very least, for him to not get the death penalty. Now, one other thing worth mentioning here in regards to the mounting amount of evidence in this particular case is that the prosecutors have recently submitted a different set of court documents in which they claim to have found a confession written by Tyler Robinson's own hand. According to them, Tyler left this note under a keyboard for his trans boyfriend to find later. Then Tyler allegedly scheduled an auto text message on his phone, which automatically sent his boyfriend a message at a later date telling him to check under the keyboard. He did. And he found this handwritten letter where Tyler basically confessed to everything, saying the following quote, luna, if you are reading this per my text, then I am sorry. I left the house this morning on a mission and said an auto text. I am likely dead or facing a lengthy prison sentence. I had the opportunity to Take out Charlie Kirk. And I took it. I don't know if I will have succeeded, but I had hoped to make it home to you. I wish we could have lived in a world where this did not feel necessary. I wish I could have stayed for you and lived our lives together. I lack the words to express how much I love you and how very much you mean to me. Please try to find joy in this life. I love you always, Tyler. Now, according to the court documents, the trans boyfriend then took a photograph of this letter and burned the original copy. However, I don't know exactly how, but somehow he failed to burn it properly and the forensic investigators were able to piece it back together. I guess it'll come out during the trial how that could actually happen in practice. Regardless, though, in terms of the next steps in this particular case, tomorrow, which is Friday, April 17, both the defense attorneys and the prosecutors will go back to court and debate the issue of whether or not to allow cameras and microphones in the courtroom. And. And that's obviously pretty monumental given the fact that if cameras are going to be allowed in the courtroom, I mean, when that trial is happening, probably every single channel will be tuned in, and I mean that It'll easily get 100 million views across TV and social media. So that is obviously very important. Then next month, unless it's going to be moved back, is the preliminary hearing. It's currently scheduled from Monday, May 18th. And so we can all look forward to that. In the meantime, though, since we are talking about Charlie, I will mention here that we at the Epoch Times recently published a great documentary called Truth Under Fire, where we not only went through Charlie Kirk's life and legacy, but also we basically connected the dots and traced back the origins of the extremist labels that were imposed upon him, as well as the process of those labels spiraling out of control and ultimately putting Charlie in the crosshairs. Because this letter that allegedly was written by the very hand of Tyler Robinson, in terms of the rationale for assassinating Charlie, he allegedly wrote this. I wish we could have lived in a world where this did not feel necessary. Where it did not feel necessary. Right. And it's exactly that feeling that we explore in that documentary. Because if you remember, when Charlie was still alive and he was having all those events, they were routinely getting protested against. Right? And there were many reporters who would go down to those protests and on camera they would interview the protesters against Charlie and. And they would ask them why they were there and why they were so opposed to Charlie Kirk. Many Times, very often they couldn't actually explain it. They would just repeat sort of the narratives that they might have heard online, like, oh, he's a Nazi, oh, he's racist, he's a white nationalist, et cetera. But if the reporter actually dug down and they said, okay, what specifically did he say that made you that makes you feel that way? Very often they couldn't specifically say why they felt that way. So it was very fascinating to hear Tyler write, I wish we could have lived in a world where this did not feel necessary. It almost feels to me that he got co opted by this, by this machine. And so that takes me back to the documentary, because in that documentary we basically unpack the coordinated campaign that labeled Charlie an extremist. Because if you look back, it wasn't just one reporter or one influencer or just one media outlet. It really was this giant machine that was mobilized to label Charlie as a dangerous extremist, to basically tar and feather him and to publicly brand him as a right wing threat to the very fabric of our society. And it wasn't organic. It was a step by step campaign to dehumanize him. And unfortunately, as clearly laid out here, it worked. But, I mean, I guess the silver lining here is that in the process, it woke up millions of Americans to these types of tactics. And so, yeah, check it out. It's a really good documentary exposing this powerful machine that framed Charlie. And if you want to watch it, I'll throw the link to it. You can find it down at the very top of the description box below. And also in the description box is all the relevant core documents that we discussed in today's episode. If you want to dig deeper into them, they'll be down there. Smash those like and subscribe buttons as you're making your way down there as well to help the video reach ever more people. And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.