An expert says that statements made by a 22-year-old man suspected in the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk will be admissible in court.
Tyler Robinson, a resident of Utah, was taken into custody and more details are emerging about his arrest early Friday, including statements reportedly made to his roommate and a family member that led him to being apprehended by law enforcement.
"Those statements will be devastating to him down the road, they'll be admissible, to some extent, certainly at this point, where he's first going to be charged with an offense," Andrew McCabe, former FBI director said in an interview with CNN. "I expect you'll see those statements in the affidavit that supports the initial charge. And they could also, depending on the... Utah evidence law could also come be admitted if at trial, if he goes to trial there would be a fight over that. But nevertheless, the government has a lot to work with."
Officials say that Robinson acted alone, however, it's still early in the investigation and many questions are still left to be determined, he added.
Investigators Thursday night apparently learned of the roommate and the text messages and Discord messages with the alleged suspect, McCabe said. He expects that investigators will be looking more into the roommate and the relationship with the suspect.
"It seems to indicate that the roommate had some knowledge about what he was doing. The question was did he know about the entire plan. And if he did know about it, did he assist in it, support in it, provided any kind of... if he was in agreement with Robinson and took any step in furtherance of the crime, in terms of providing support or whatever that might have been... he could certainly have been considered a co-conspirator," McCabe said.
"It doesn't mean he will be charged," he said. "But boy, if I was running this investigation I'd be wanting to take a very close look at him."
The roommate, whose name was not released, has apparently cooperated so far with investigators.
"But we'll have to see, he could really go any direction at this point," he said.
"The question is how long did he know about this rifle and did he know about what this rifle was used for?" McCabe said.
Apparently he confessed to family members.
"It's really remarkable," he said. "A family member had suspicions, likely based off of seeing the photographs, but that has not been confirmed to us at this time, and confronted him, had a conversation with him and in that conversation Robinson made statements that amount to a confession."
