BREAKING: Tyler Robinson defense attorney claims Charlie Kirk 'spoke hatefully' about LGBTQ community

During closing arguments on Tuesday in the preliminary hearing of Tyler Robinson, the man charged with killing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, an attorney representing Robinson said that Kirk “spoke hatefully of certain groups of people.”

The comments came during attorney Richard Novak pushing back on the state’s victim targeting enhancement. The state’s stance was that Kirk was targeted over his political views.

“It is true that Mr. Kirk spoke hatefully of certain groups of people. He spoke hatefully of people who don't have traditional norm-conforming gender identities. He spoke hatefully of people who are not strictly heterosexual. He spoke hatefully of people who have sexual relationships out of marriage, and yes, it is true that the evidence from Mr. Twiggs is that he identified in a non-gender-conforming way to his friends, and that he was in a romantic relationship with Mr. Robinson, but that doesn't mean that those personal choices by Mr. Twiggs and by Mr. Robinson equate with the hate that at least Mr. Robinson says he had toward Mr. Kirk.”

Novak argued that there is no evidence backing up the stance that Robinson targeted Kirk due to political views. “There’s no evidence as to really what was in Mr. Robinson’s mind—if in fact he was the shooter—about Charlie Kirk, because we have no testimony that Mr. Robinson had ever spoken about Charlie Kirk, that he’d ever heard anything he’d said, that he’d ever discussed anything.”

He cited the interview with Twiggs, in which Twiggs said he had never discussed Kirk with Robinson. “There is no evidence of Mr. Robinson having heard or seen anything specific from Mr. Kirk, or having expressed anything about Mr. Kirk until the statement, which basically says some hatred can’t be negotiated out.”

He said that “there's a gap between what it is that Mr. Kirk said and stood for—the phrase in the statute is political expression—and what it is that Mr. Robinson felt about him. And it's a significant gap because what it allows the state to do is to make it up.”

Prosecutor Chad Grunander pushed back against the defense’s comments, saying that Kirk “had an opinion that he would express on politics and religion. That doesn’t make it hate, but the fact that Mr. Novak even considered it as hate makes the case for the state.”