The death of Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves through conservative media, but revelations about private WhatsApp messages he sent just 48 hours before his assassination have recently become the center of a political firestorm, used by anti-Israel commentators to support claims that Kirk had turned against Israel. In the messages, Kirk vented about Jewish donors, using language that seemed to be based on classic antisemitic tropes.
According to Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, we now know exactly how those messages ended up in the hands of podcaster Candace Owens.
In an appearance on The Erin Molan Show, Rabbi Wolicki disclosed for the first time the alleged chain of custody that brought Kirk’s private texts to public attention. The person at the center of the leak is Joe Kent, Trump’s former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who recently resigned over his insistence that Iran posed no threat to the US and that Israel manipulated the US president into attacking the Islamist regime.
Rabbi Pesach Wolicki is an Orthodox rabbi, author, and co-host of The Shoulder to Shoulder Podcast, known for his work building bridges between Israel and Christian Zionist communities. He was a trusted adviser to Kirk on Israel-related matters and a member of the private nine-person WhatsApp group in which Kirk’s controversial messages were sent.
He was hosted on Sunday by Erin Molan, an Australian broadcaster and television presenter, known for her work on Sky News Australia. Molan frequently engages American conservative figures on geopolitical matters.
On The Erin Molan Show, Wolicki laid out the trail:
“The way that those screenshots got to Candace is via Joe Kent…Andrew Kolvet, who’s, you know, it was Charlie’s number two guy who now hosts the show. 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…to someone in the government.”
Joe Kent is a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer and Green Beret who previously served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, one of the most sensitive intelligence posts in the U.S. government. He resigned earlier this month amid reported disagreements over U.S. policy on Iran. Kent is already under FBI investigation for allegedly leaking classified information during his tenure.
The texts Kirk sent approximately 48 hours before his death captured him expressing frustration over what he perceived as pressure from pro-Israel Jewish donors. According to reports, Kirk wrote that he had lost a $2 million-per-year Jewish donor after refusing to cancel Tucker Carlson. He added that “Jewish donors play into all of the stereotypes,” and reportedly contemplated distancing himself from the pro-Israel cause. Those messages, ripped from a private group chat with no warrant and no legal process, became ammunition for Owens and others to construct a narrative implicating Jewish influence in Kirk’s assassination.
Candace Owens is an American commentator and podcaster who was a prominent figure at Turning Point USA before a very public break with Kirk. Owens has come out as being virulently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, frequently propagating conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes. She has used the leaked messages to fuel conspiracy theories linking Kirk’s death to Jewish donor pressure and Israeli interests.
Andrew Kolvet is a Turning Point USA spokesman who also served as one of Kirk’s closest associates. He now co-hosts the Turning Point show. Kolvet was one of the nine members of the private chat group.
Wolicki made clear that the members of the chat group were incensed: “The response of the people in the chat group was, ‘ You don’t have a right to do that.’ This is a private chat group. There was no warrant. It doesn’t work that way.”
He then described how the group pieced together the rest of the trail:
“We kind of put two and two together, and eventually, I’ll leave out some of the details that I shouldn’t say, we’ve 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.”
Kent has previously denied leaking the messages. But since the assassination, he has repeatedly highlighted the texts on public platforms, including Tucker Carlson’s show, describing them as “data points” potentially connected to broader motives in Kirk’s death, including opposition to U.S. military involvement tied to Israeli interests.
What makes this story more than political gossip is the use to which the leaked messages have been put. Kirk’s private venting in private texts came in a moment of frustration, by a man who, by all accounts, remained deeply supportive of Israel until his death. These messages have been weaponized to suggest that Jewish influence was somehow behind his killing. Owens and aligned voices have relentlessly amplified this framing despite the lack of any factual basis.
Kolvet publicly confirmed the authenticity of the messages, explaining that he shared the screenshots with government officials “to leave no stone unturned” as part of the investigation into Kirk’s murder. That explanation has satisfied few in the conservative pro-Israel world. Whether passing private messages to a government official without a warrant, and those messages then making their way to a podcaster who has used them to stoke antisemitic conspiracy theories, constitutes a betrayal is no longer a matter of debate among those who knew Kirk best.
The FBI is already investigating Kent for alleged leaks of classified information. Rabbi Wolicki’s public disclosure on The Erin Molan Show has now sharpened the scrutiny considerably.
Charlie Kirk built much of his platform on unwavering support for Israel. The exploitation of his private doubts to undermine the very alliance he championed is the final, bitter irony of this story.
