By James P. Sutton,Peter Gattuso,Ross Anderson,Sean Gallup
Copyright thedispatch
Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray charged Tyler Robinson on Tuesday with aggravated murder in the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, releasing text messages that showed the 22-year-old suspect confessed to his transgender roommate—with whom he was romantically involved—and that he had planned the shooting over the week before. When his roommate asked why he killed Kirk, Robinson texted “I had enough of his hatred” and that “some hate can’t be negotiated out,” according to the evidence released Tuesday. He also wrote that the messages engraved on his shell casings were “mostly a big meme, if I see ‘notices bulge uwu’ on fox new [sic] I might have a stroke.” Gray announced prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Robinson, who appeared virtually in court Tuesday and remains jailed without bail.
A New York state judge on Tuesday dismissed terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, the alleged gunman in the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan—though he faces nine other state charges, including second-degree murder, in addition to charges in Pennsylvania and in federal court. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had argued that Mangione’s alleged actions met the legal threshold for terrorism—planned murder intended to “intimidate and coerce a civilian population”—which New York State Supreme Court Justice Justice Gregory Carro described in his decision as “legally insufficient,” because, in part, “there was no evidence presented of such a goal.”
FBI Director Kash Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, where Senate Democrats pushed him for what they said was allowing the president’s personal whims to influence his leadership. When Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California grilled Patel on his decision to move Ghislaine Maxwell—the convicted accomplice of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—to a lower-security prison, suggesting that President Donald Trump influenced the move, Patel replied that he was “combating the weaponization of intelligence by the likes of you.” He also said that the Bureau of Prisons decided to move Maxwell. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey panned Patel for bringing what he said was “generational destruction” to the FBI, igniting a shouting match in which Patel called Booker an “embarrassment.” Later, Patel addressed his social media post stating that authorities arrested “the subject” connected to Charlie Kirk’s assassination—a person who was later released—saying that he could “have been more careful in my verbiage” but didn’t “see it as a mistake.”
On Tuesday, Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant announced new guidance for social media companies in light of a recently passed statute barring Australians under 16 from holding accounts on the platforms. They said that while age-verification measures would be “unreasonable,” companies must install a “multilayered waterfall approach” to ensure young users’ accounts are removed, but also include “accessible review mechanisms” for accounts wrongly suspended. Companies could be fined up to 50 million Australian dollars ($34 million U.S.) if they don’t comply with the ban, which goes into effect on December 10.
Trump sued the New York Times and four news reporters employed at the outlet for defamation on Tuesday, seeking $15 billion in damages. In a social media post, Trump said the news organization “has engaged in decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.” A spokesperson for the Times said the president’s lawsuit has “no merit,” and described it as “an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.”
The Georgia Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision on Tuesday, declined to hear an appeal to a December 2024 court ruling that disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting a criminal racketeering case against Trump and 18 other defendants. The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, a state government office, will now consider whether to appoint the case to another prosecutor or to drop it entirely. Willis indicted Trump in August 2023 for his role in challenging the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. But a state appeals court later ruled that, because Willis had initially appointed an assistant district attorney with whom she had a previous romantic relationship as a lead prosecutor on the case, neither she nor anyone employed in her office could be involved in the case.
