Andrew Kolvet, a host associated with The Charlie Kirk Show, said Monday that he provided private text messages from the late Charlie Kirk to then–National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent, but denied any involvement in their eventual public release, which later fueled conspiracy theories.

Kolvet explained that he shared the messages with Kent shortly after Kirk’s death as part of efforts to gather information, but said he declined a subsequent request to make them public. The texts later surfaced through Candace Owens, a conspiracy theorist who has used them to advance claims about Kirk’s death.

Kent, who stepped down from his role in the Trump administration last week after issuing a letter critical of Israel and its “influence,” is reportedly under FBI investigation over allegations that he leaked classified material.

Addressing the controversy on his show, Kolvet first aired remarks from Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, who accused Kent of being the source of the leak:

WOLICKI: “The way that those screenshots got to Candace is via Joe Kent. Andrew Kolvet, Andrew was in the chat group as well. He was one of the nine people in the group and he admitted — at first, be perfectly honest, at first he was denying it, we didn’t know how Candace got them — but then he admitted on the air on his show that he had given these text messages, and he gave them to-, he said that on the show that he gave them to someone in the government.

“He told us that, that he gave them to someone in government. Joe Kent was someone that we knew that there was a relationship there between Charlie, and Andrew, and Joe. We knew that when Charlie would visit Washington, D.C., he would talk to Joe. We kind of verified that the messages had been given by Andrew to Joe Kent, and that Joe Kent had been the one to pass them on to Candace.”

Kolvet responded by confirming part of the account while pushing back on the conclusions being drawn.

“All right, so ‘verified’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I do want to confirm what I can confirm, and that is that, yes, in the immediate aftermath, I did provide the group chat to Joe Kent,” said Kolvet. “We don’t throw around accusations recklessly here, we don’t. There’s a lot people who do that online, we don’t do that. We think that’s keeping in the spirit of Charlie’s spirit, and the way we choose to do things is we try and be responsible. So, yes, in a spirit of looking at every lead, turning over every stone, we wanted everybody that needed to know, to know anything that we knew. Not just-, I mean, and by the way, we’ve been accused of not being interested in the truth-”

Kolvet’s co-host Blake Neff then clarified the broader context of the controversy for listeners:

“And just to remind people what this is referring to, this is after Charlie’s murder, there were text messages that, from a private group chat, that were made public and were used to, frankly, kick off the big conspiracy theory that we’ve run into over and over again, which is that Israel or the Jews had Charlie murdered. Which we do not believe,” interjected co-host Blake Neff to set the stage.

“Which we do not believe,” agreed Kolvet, before continuing with his account:

“But we have been accused of trying to-, or we’re not interested in the truth. The actual fact of the matter is that behind the scenes, we have given everything we know to give, every single piece of information. This was one of them. I was told I could trust Joe Kent, I provided the screengrabs to Joe Kent, and that I don’t know what happened to them at that point, okay? I just want to make that very clear.

“Eventually, Joe did message me and suggest that I make those screengrabs public. I declined because those were shared privately, I didn’t want to be reckless with them in the public, there could be innocent people on that group chat that would then be harmed. So I declined. But then, fast forward another week or two, and they were made public. So that’s what I know, is that Joe suggested that they be made public, I declined, then they were made public. Can I 100% categorically say that he leaked them? No. But those are the facts. Maybe somebody on his team, maybe they got passed around, maybe somebody else leaked them. But that’s-, those are the facts of the matter. And that’s what I know.”

The messages at the center of the controversy were shared by Owens, who has pointed to them as supposed evidence of a broader geopolitical plot behind Kirk’s killing, rather than the actions of Tyler Robinson, the defendant in the case, who claimed responsibility and said he targeted Kirk over his views on transgender issues.

Among the messages circulated publicly were statements attributed to Kirk, including: “Just lost another huge Jewish donor. $2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker. I’m thinking of inviting Candace,” and “Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this. Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro Israel cause.”

Owens has continued to promote the theory that Israel may have been involved in Kirk’s death, a claim that has been widely disputed by those close to him.

{Matzav.com}