Charlie Kirk’s former security chief sued podcast host Candace Owens on Thursday for defamation, alleging she falsely implicated him in a conspiracy to murder Mr. Kirk.
Former security chief Brian Harpole alleged that Owens, a right-wing firebrand, inaccurately accused him of meeting with Kirk’s wife, Erika, at a military base a day before Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University in September. He is also suing Mitch Snow, a retired Army sergeant who testified on Owens’ podcast that he was an eyewitness to what he described as the secret meeting.
In the 69-page lawsuit, Harpole, who owns a private security company and worked for Kirk for several years, accused Owens of “engaging in a coordinated and deliberate campaign designed to defame him.”
He denied any involvement in any plot to assassinate Mr. Kirk and called Ms. Owens a “conspiracy theorist” who showed a “pattern of seeking public attention and media exposure.”
Ms. Owens responded to the lawsuit on her daily podcast Thursday night, calling it “crazy,” challenging Mr. Harpole’s allegations and denying any wrongdoing. “The one thing I’ve always been interested in is getting to the truth of what happened to Charlie Kirk,” he said.
A spokesperson for Owens said he had no comment beyond what he said on his podcast. Snow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville, is the latest salvo in an internal conflict that has been roiling the country’s political right, with factions forming around divisive issues such as the war on Iran, President Trump’s economic and immigration policies and the circumstances surrounding the murder of Kirk, who co-founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA.
Owens has placed himself at the center of many of those disputes, especially when it comes to Kirk, who for many years was a close friend of his. She has made his murder the main focus of her podcast, framing it without evidence as the product of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving Israel, France and the US military. And he has repeatedly suggested to his nearly six million YouTube subscribers that Mrs. Kirk, the activist’s widow, was involved in an elaborate cover-up.
The commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety has said that Tyler Robinson, accused of murdering Kirk, acted alone, although Trump and others have widely accused “the radical left” of inciting the violence.
In July, Ms Owens was sued for defamation by Brigitte Macron, the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, for claiming she is transgender. In recent months, Owens has publicly clashed with right-wing influencers Jessica Reed Kraus and Laura Loomer, who called her “depraved” for her treatment of Ms. Kirk. Macron’s lawsuit is still pending in Delaware state court.
Last month, Trump got involved, posting on Truth Social that Ms. Owens is an “extremely low IQ individual” and sharing a doctored image that referred to her as “the vile person of the year.” He also called Owens’ claims about Macron “despicable.” This week, two members of Congress introduced a bipartisan House resolution condemning Ms. Owens, as well as a left-wing livestreamer, for “hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
Mr. Harpole’s lawsuit seeks a court order forcing Ms. Owens to remove defamatory statements from social media, as well as financial damages. His attorney, Matthew Sarelson of Dhillon Law Group, said on social media that he and his client “will not be making any further statements.”
On her podcast, Ms. Owens suggested that she welcomed the lawsuit because she believed it would allow her to use the discovery process to seek additional information from Mr. Harpole and Turning Point, including text messages, video footage and a statement from Ms. Kirk.
In January, Turning Point also sent Ms. Owens a cease and desist letter, parts of which she read on her show at the time. The letter demanded that Ms. Owens stop claiming that the nonprofit or any of its employees or affiliates “knew about the murder beforehand, participated on the day of the murder, or covered up the truth about the murder after the fact.”
A Turning Point spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
