Speaker
Ashleigh Merchant
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Legal experts say prosecutors could establish probable cause in under 30 minutes with a single summary witness, making the five-day hearing unusual.
Lance Twigs was granted use immunity, meaning his statements cannot be used against him, but he can still be prosecuted based on independently obtained evidence.
Cross-examination of Officer Bagley revealed there were no metal detectors, no drones, and no law enforcement on the roof at the Utah Valley University event where Charlie Kirk was shot.
President Trump personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to request a review of the red card against US player Folarin Balogun — and it worked. The card was suspended for up to a year, clearing Balogun to play Belgium, but FIFA publicly denied Trump's call influenced the independent disciplinary committee.
Twenty-nine present and former FIFA officials have been indicted for corruption — including racketeering and money laundering — tied to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup selections. The referee who issued the Balogun red card had himself been investigated for match-fixing by Brazil's parliament, yet FIFA still deployed him as a top World Cup official.
Megyn Kelly describes the moment she watched Charlie Kirk's murder video break live while she was in the studio — she screamed and burst into tears. She recounts sitting with him weeks earlier at Turning Point, where he told Tucker Carlson to 'go max' on Israel criticism and told Megyn to be his voice on Epstein.
Utah's legal culture heavily favors preliminary hearings over grand juries, and the defense can exploit that to lock in witness testimony and cross-examine prosecution evidence before trial. A grand jury would have indicted Robinson in a closed session with no defense access — the preliminary hearing is a much bigger gift to Tyler Robinson's lawyers.
Tyler Robinson allegedly sent a series of formal, almost Shakespearean text messages to his trans furry roommate Lance Twigs the day he shot Charlie Kirk, confessing in ornate language to the murder. The texts are so theatrically worded that thousands online believe they must be fabricated — but experts say the metadata will ultimately determine whether they came from Robinson's phone.
ATF analysts could not conclusively match the bullet fragment recovered from Charlie Kirk's autopsy to Tyler Robinson's .30-06 rifle. Matt Murphy explains this is common with fragmented bullets hitting bone — and points out that the expended shell casing found at the scene did match the rifle, with Robinson's DNA on the trigger.
A viral video of a woman reading Tyler Robinson's texts in a mock Renaissance fair voice went mainstream because thousands of people find the ornate phrasing — 'it was I who committed this act,' 'I had hoped to keep this secret to the grave' — too theatrical to be authentic. Megyn Kelly plays the clip and admits she can no longer read the actual texts without hearing this parody.
Sage Steele is thrilled Balogun gets to play but uneasy about a sitting president pressuring FIFA. She flags the asterisk problem: if the US wins, the world will say they needed Trump to clear the path. Sports and politics are now fully intertwined — and she doesn't love it.
Lance Twigs — Tyler Robinson's alleged trans furry lover — is the prosecution's most important witness, possessing the alleged confessional texts and letter. But introducing him to a conservative Utah jury is a challenge: the defense calls him Luna, not Lance, setting up a credibility war. His use immunity also limits cross-examination effectiveness.
Matt Murphy argues the Tyler Robinson defense isn't seriously chasing a not-guilty verdict — they're trying to seed enough residual doubt in jurors to save his life in the penalty phase. Even one juror who thinks 'what if' about the bullet or the texts could prevent a death sentence. That's the real game being played at this preliminary hearing.
Multiple online accounts — including one directly connected to Lance Twigs's social circle — predicted something big would happen at the Charlie Kirk event on September 10 and then claimed credit afterward. Megyn Kelly and Viva Frei argue these posts have never been adequately investigated by the FBI and represent legitimate unanswered questions.
George Zinn, a man with a lengthy criminal record, falsely confessed to Kirk's murder to distract police and was later found with 20+ child sexual abuse images on his phone. Viva Frei calls his presence at the event 'a wild coincidence' if unrelated — and raises the unresolved question of whether Zinn had any connection to the online community that predicted Kirk's death.
Mark Geragos says that competent capital defense requires working the guilt phase and the penalty phase mitigation strategy at the same time. If the defense can establish Tyler Robinson was under the substantial domination of someone else — potentially Lance Twigs or an online community — that could be a critical mitigating factor in the death penalty decision.
Analysis
What they talk about
- True Crime 100%
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