Anniversary Of Charlie Kirk’s Murder Is Ripe For More Prosecutions

One year ago, Charlie Kirk was murdered by Tyler Robinson at Utah Valley University. That moment of tragedy is unforgettable. All decent Americans were justly incensed and called for President Trump to go after the radical violent left in response.

This anniversary is a time to assess where we stand. What has been done to get justice and thwart rising left-wing violence?

Defeatism and attention-seeking influencer soap operas have shifted blame and attention away from the left. They threaten the unity and political support we desperately need on the right. A look at the last year of administration efforts should help reorient our attention.

Nearly a year after Robinson shot Kirk, a Utah judge has finally ruled that Robinson can proceed to trial for aggravated murder, in which the state can seek the death penalty. Contrary to the baseless and malicious theorizing spread by Candace Owens and associated influencers, there is plenty of evidence assisting the state in its prosecution of Robinson.

Robinson’s defense attorneys are merely seeking to mitigate the sentence, which is the best they can hope for him. While the delay is infuriating when we want swift and public justice, we are in the near future likely to see Robinson convicted for the murder. The prosecutors should push for the death penalty.

Dismantling the Violent Left

Right after Charlie’s murder, President Trump moved to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. President Trump also instructed the Joint Terrorism Task Force to “to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation,” such as the leftists rioting and threatening or acting out violence.

The White House’s U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy released in May 2026, identified violent left-wing extremists as one of the United States’ three biggest terror threats. (the other two are Islamic terrorism, and cartels and transnational gangs). As I wrote for The Federalist, this reorientation to target left-wing violence is an enormous shift from recent Democrat administrations. President Biden and Obama weaponized law enforcement, military, and intelligence against conservatives and Christians, treating them as domestic terrorists.

In July, the Trump administration hosted a summit of allied nations to share information and strategies on how to curtail left-wing violence and subversion. The State Department released a report on Cuba’s decades-long support of leftist militants in the United States and has sanctioned many Cuban officials and state entities.

Sanctioning Cuban entities as state sponsors of terrorism may provide more opportunities to investigate, prosecute, and shut down leftist organizations in America that are intimately connected with those Cuban entities. For example, investigations are underway into the finances and activities of Neville Singham and Hasan Piker. Strangling Cuba’s influence network may very well help crush subversive domestic leftist networks.

At the end of August, the State Department sanctioned several transnational far-left entities, including the Italian group Austici/Invetati, a major platform hosting Antifa sites and communications. This effective move has led to Antifa websites going dark, and anyone donating to them or using their services can face legal repercussions.

The DOJ is reportedly seeking to investigate George Soros’s Open Society Foundation to determine if its massive leftist funding has sponsored terrorist activity. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is targeting the Open Society Foundation, Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This will hopefully lead to the loss of their tax-exempt status and fines.

The SPLC was indicted in April for wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Hopefully its indictment sets a pattern for more to come.

Arresting Footsoldiers of the Left

We have also witnessed an uptick in law enforcement against violent left-wing activists. In February, the DOJ announced criminal charges against more than 30 left-wing protesters — including former CNN host Don Lemon — who harassed Cities Church in Minneapolis in January. Many leftist rioters have been arrested and charged, such as Nicolas Scelfo charged in June for threatening to kill federal immigration agents and their families.

In June, eight Antifa terrorists were sentenced to effectively life prison sentences for their July 2025 attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility and agents in Prairieland, Texas. Also in June, 15 members of the Antifa-connected Direct Action Minnesota were charged for attempts to impede, injure, and assault federal officers. 

Federal actions have barely kept pace with unceasing threats of left-wing violence, such as the dramatic assassination attempt by Cole Allen at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April. The FBI intercepted and DOJ indicted eight individuals for plotting a terror attack aimed at President Trump’s UFC event at the White House in June. The alleged ringleader of this plot, Abraham H. Alvarez, was a Mexican illegal alien.

On Sept. 3, the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Benjamin Azariah for publicly threatening to kill President Trump. In August, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department arrested Jeanine John Taele with multiple firearms outside the Trump Golf Course ahead of a presidential visit.

Is President Trump Doing Enough?

Trump is taking the first whole-of-government approach to target, investigate, and take down the violent, radical left. Before Trump, many of these militant leftist actors operated without scrutiny and in multiple cases worked closely with government entities.

Some say Trump hasn’t done enough to target the left in the wake of Kirk’s assassination. Many want more serious law enforcement scrutiny into the leftist and transgender groups to which Robinson belonged. Many of the same voices on the right have criticized Trump’s war with Iran, which poses a risk for the administration, given the volatility and uncertain outcome.

Arguably, our greatest threats currently are domestic, not foreign. Nevertheless, while the Iran War may be unpopular among many Trump supporters, that does not mean domestic efforts to take down leftist domestic terrorists have faded.

Some criticisms of the law enforcement effort have been offered in bad faith or fail to accurately assess the scale of opposition. Given the corruption of the judiciary and the need to purge law enforcement agencies of deep state actors, Trump faces many more obstacles than did Obama or Biden when they went after conservatives. As with his immigration enforcement efforts, President Trump must essentially build a new governmental machine to target the militant left, even if he can draw on plenty of existing statutory authority.

Of course, we should continue to pursue more aggressive actions to punish the militant left and keep them from dominating America, but we should admit how much the Trump administration is doing and that it is having a real effect. Most of the actions noted in this article would have been unthinkable a few years ago or even in the first Trump administration.

Step On the Gas Harder

Yes, more needs to happen. Ideally, the “nonprofits” that fund much of this leftist activity would be sanctioned, fined, shut down, and their assets seized. Dozens of small militant leftist groups like the John Brown Gun Clubs, Redneck Revolt, and Socialist Rifle Association should be designated terrorist organizations.

Prosecutors should also push for the most severe sentences possible for the guilty, which includes execution for high-profile leftist terrorists like Robinson, Allen, and Luigi Mangione. Realistically, an enduring obstacle will be the obstruction by judiciary, which often imposes weak penalties, such as an Oregon state judge sentencing a Portland domestic terrorist to only three years of probation after he pled guilty to plotting to kill ICE agents. The judiciary remains one of the most intransigent obstacles in our quest for justice, but we cannot despair, nor should we blame the Trump administration for judges it didn’t appoint.

We owe it to Kirk to get retribution for his horrible murder and to ensure he didn’t die in vain. Charlie gave his life to combat leftist tyranny and to support President Trump’s vision for proudly renewing America. He died as an outspoken witness for his Christian faith, too.

Just as now is not a time to talk about forgiveness or moving on, neither can we give in to apathy or despair. Charlie didn’t do that, and wouldn’t want us to do it either.

Samuel Kimzey is a doctoral student at Hillsdale College and a 2025 Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He holds a B.A. in History and Christian Studies from Bluefield College and an M.A. in Humanities from the University of Dallas, and previously taught at Valley Classical School in Blacksburg, Virginia. Find him on X @SamuelMKimzey