One year after Charlie Kirk was killed, several of the conservative influencers who most forcefully defended him say they are now confronting escalating threats from left-wing agitators.
Prominent conservative commentators Benny Johnson, Laura Loomer and Robby Starbuck have each faced threats to their lives since Kirk was fatally shot last September in front of students at Utah Valley University.
Kirk, the 31-year-old leader of Turning Point, was killed by a single bullet. Utah prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty against Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old accused of his murder.
Johnson, a longtime Turning Point associate and close friend of Kirk, received a disturbing letter at his Florida home just days after Kirk’s death.
“Maybe someone will blow your head off!!! We can hope! Planning any public engagements? Love to see your head explode and your blood stain the concrete red,” the letter said.
Federal prosecutors identified the alleged sender as George Isbell Jr., a 69-year-old San Diego man who is now facing a federal charge over the mailed threat.
The letter also denounced Johnson as a “white cis Christian Trump” advocate and said the writer would take pleasure in leaving his wife widowed and his four children without a father.
Roughly a month later, Loomer, an outspoken right-wing Trump supporter with more than one million followers on X, was targeted with anti-Semitic death threats on the social media platform.
A year after Charlie Kirk was killed, the conservative influencers who defended him loudest are facing growing threats from online leftwing agitators
Johnson, a longtime Turning Point associate and Kirk’s friend, had a letter graphic delivered to his Florida home a few days after Kirk died
Loomer, a vocal right-wing Trump supporter with over a million followers on X, faced anti-Semitic death threats on the social media platform
Kirk’s death, which many on the right say united conservatives across the country, has done nothing to slow the threats or the violence
Prosecutors say a 28-year-old in Spring, Texas, named Nicholas Ray, posting under the X handle @zionistarescum, targeted Loomer along with other conservative influencers.
Ray wrote that he would string her up from the Smithsonian, and told Babylon Bee boss Seth Dillon ‘you’re living on borrowed time’ after deciding Dillon had helped Israel plan Kirk’s murder.
Ray had started the account five days after the shooting, and Florida has since charged him with 12 counts, terroristic threats and extortion among them.
Meanwhile, Starbuck has had explicit death threats sent to him and his home address posted online.
He blames Google’s AI chatbot for falsely telling millions of users he was a criminal and a sex abuser, and says the threats followed the lies.
Starbuck, 37, sued Google for at least $15 million last October. Google tried to get the case thrown out, and lost.
On July 24, Delaware Superior Court Judge Meghan Adams ruled the suit could go forward, noting that Google has never claimed the statements were true.
The case is now headed into discovery, where Starbuck’s lawyers can demand internal records on how the AI came to invent a criminal record for him.
The letter attacked Johnson as a ‘white cis Christian Trump’ advocate and said the writer would take joy in widowing his wife and orphaning his four children
Starbuck, 37, sued Google for at least $15 million last October. Google tried to get the case thrown out but failed to do so
Then last week an LA podcaster named Benjamin Southworth, 40, was indicted for threatening to kill Trump and for posting the Tennessee home address of the president’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow.
Kirk’s death, which many on the right say united conservatives across the country, has done nothing to slow the threats or the violence.
