Former FBI special agent Stuart Kaplan said Wednesday on “Jesse Watters Primetime” that the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk may have been a “professional hit.”
The 31-year-old TPUSA founder had been speaking with students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, when he was shot and killed. While discussing a potential suspect the FBI had interrogated but later released, Fox’s Jesse Watters asked Kaplan for his reaction to the attack. (RELATED: MSNBC Issues Apology For Political Analyst Who Blamed Charlie Kirk For Getting Shot — Didn’t Bother To Read It On Air)
“You know, Jesse, I think this assassination, different than the assassinated attempt [against President Donald Trump] back in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a very well-planned, very well-orchestrated plot that was put in motion days before. This individual had a plan of escape to elude detection of being out up on a rooftop and also being able to evade and elude law enforcement after that shot was taken,” Kaplan said.
“When you take a look at what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, [Thomas Matthew] Crooks came onto the venue, he left the venue, he came back, he was questioned. I mean, it was really an amateur scenario,” Kaplan added. “This assassination of Charlie Kirk, to me, is indicative of a professional hit, and I’m not so sure that we are going to quickly be able to apprehend this individual without some luck, hopefully.”
Kirk had regularly gone on college campuses to debate students on their political stances, with thousands in the Utah crowd eager to see the TPUSA founder. About 20 minutes after Kirk had been debating with a student, a shot rang out, hitting Kirk and ultimately killing him.
A university spokesperson told the Daily Caller that the shot came from a building about 200 yards away. Following the attack, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that a subject was captured and being interrogated, but the subject was later released.
Watters went on to ask Kaplan what he meant by “professional hit,” asking if he believes anybody with “any sort of basic training” could have carried out the attack.
“Well, when you take a look at the video and you take a look at the venue and the spectators and how close they are to Charlie Kirk, and then you have that kind of umbrella over him, that kind of tent, you have to know that this shooter had to be perched in a position with respect to being able to lay his sights perfectly, basically a headshot,” Kaplan said. “The shot that was taken was taken to immediately incapacitate Charlie Kirk. So this was not some amateur who just got up on a rooftop because it was what I consider spontaneous combustion. He got up this morning and decided he was going to do something crazy.”
“This seems the earmark of a professional that got up onto this rooftop well in advance of the venue being occupied by the spectators. He was clearly undetected,” Kaplan said. “There was no indication that anybody saw him up on this rooftop. Obviously, after that one single shot was taken, he was able to basically very quietly and systematically elude any further detection and escape. There’s been no indication that there’s a vehicle identified or any mode of how he actually escaped the venue. So to me, this is someone who had some experience, some level of sophistication to have mapped out exactly how this was going to go down.”
In Patel’s most recent post on X as of Wednesday evening, the FBI director said the “subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.” Patel added that the FBI’s investigation will continue and that it will further “release information in interest of transparency.”
Kirk is survived by his wife Erika and their two young children.
