MOUNTING EVIDENCE: Charlie Kirk preliminary hearing reveals more key information

To the senior correspondent, Claudia Cowen, she's live for us at the courthouse in Provo, Utah. Claudia. Trace, it has been a grueling four days for Erica Kirk. And today, when that graphic evidence against her husband's accused assassin played out in court, she broke down into tears. Now, the courtroom camera is not allowed to show Erica Kirk. But our reporter in the courtroom says that when prosecutors showed text messages between Lance Twiggs and Tyler Robinson discussing Robinson wanting to get a hunting rifle. And later, when Robinson talked about trying to retrieve the rifle he had left near campus but feared an officer might still be there, Erica started audibly crying. She was comforted by Charlie's mom, Catherine, who had her hand on Erica's arm. She was also in tears. And Tyler Robinson's mother, Amber, also wiping her eyes today. Keep in mind, she and her husband helped facilitate their son's surrender the day after Charlie Kirk was killed. But they have been here every day to support their son in court. While the Twiggs video played, Robinson listened in closely, something he hasn't done a lot during these preliminary hearing proceedings. But he started squirming in his chair and scratching his nose when Twiggs talked about the Dremel in the house that Robinson wanted to borrow. Prosecutors say he used that tool to engrave messages into bullets. Others in the courtroom today were crying as well as prosecutors presented the most powerful evidence so far as they try to show there is probable cause to move this case to trial. Claudia Cowen, live for us outside the courthouse. Claudia, if the news comes in, we'll get back to you. And if you can continue reading along. Okay. And Tyler says, I'm still okay, my love, but I'm stuck in Orem for a little while longer yet. Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but gotta grab my rifle still. To be honest, I had hoped to keep this secret until I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you. And then Lance replies, you weren't the one who did it, right? And Tyler says, I am, I'm sorry. Lance says, I thought they caught the person. And then Tyler says, no, they grabbed some crazy old dude and interrogated someone in similar clothing. I planned to grab my rifle from the drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down. It's quiet almost enough to get out, but there's one vehicle lingering. We could scroll down to page three. Continue reading. Lance says, why? And Tyler says, why did I do it? And Lance says, yeah. Tyler says, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. If I'm able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again. Hopefully they have moved on. I haven't seen anything in the news about them finding it. We'll update you shortly, or sorry, we'll update you by midnight. Provo, Utah. We've been listening to a lot of the evidence being presented there in the courtroom. It started off with the prosecution win that we got to not only hear, but see the interview with Tyler Robinson's roommate and alleged lover. And then we saw the text messages, John. I think we all agree they are incredibly revealing about Tyler Robinson's intentions and what he clearly states in many of those alleged messages that he did. You know, just to get back to where you started there. It was quite a surprise when Lance twigs popped up on the video because we had been led to believe that we were going to hear audio and not see the video, that the court was going to see the video. And then boom, there he was. And I thought it was a mistake that the defense was suddenly going to jump on. But somewhere in there, I guess we missed something that Judge Graff said where he allowed the video to be seen. So that was our first opportunity to see and hear Lance twigs speaking and speaking about the conversations that he had with Tyler Robinson in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Let's bring in James Galliano, retired FBI supervisory special agent and a Fox News contributor. You've been watching along with us here, James. Your impressions of what you heard from from Lance twigs and that lengthy text exchange on discord that really seemed to be nothing less than a confession on Tyler Robinson's part. Yeah, we just got a preview of what the trial is going to be like. This trial is going to be lengthy. It's not going to be done in a week or two. And I am presuming that the judge is going to bound this over for trial by close of business tomorrow or sooner. The amount of evidence that the state has put forth and the way that they have tied in circumstantial evidence has been masterful. And look, let me just look at this really quickly from an investigator side. Watching being able to watch Lance twigs. That's important for us to detect body language, tone, word choices. We're trying to determine the veracity of his comments. And then to tie that in with the actual discord chat and the text messages, this is going to be an open and shut case. And the last thing that Agent Davis put out there in regards to sell bright. That's the means the software that we have to basically break into an encrypted phone and get evidence off of that. And to do the timeline, we saw the digital imagery yesterday and the day before of Tyler Robinson's movements. Then we had Lance twigs testifying to his interactions with Tyler. And now you have the digital evidence. This this is an open and shut case masterfully done by the state. And so much there. Right, James. I mean, all the way down to that note that Tyler Robinson directed his roommate to go find underneath the keyboard after he carried out this alleged murder. This was twigs on that note from Robinson in the interview. You talked about the note that he left. I want to bring this up. And I should say that these text messages that we've been looking at here are base number 54. The notes have been titled 16.3, the note. And this is base number 58. Do you recognize that on the screen there? Yeah. What do you recognize it as? That was the note under his keyboard that he was referring to in the first text of that chain. So where did you find this? On his desk underneath his computer keyboard. Gosh, James. And you think about all that he revealed in just that note. Yeah. Two big things jump out at you right there, premeditation and an acknowledgment of what he had done. And look, remember, the top charge in this case is aggravated murder. And for the aggravation piece of that, you've got to show some type of severity, cruelty, heinousness, depravity. This case has all those things. And I believe this is my estimation. It's met that standard here. Yeah, this is damning. When you start tying in the stuff that has been digitally, forensically harvested, you put that together with the alleged suspect's own words, open and shut case. All right. Well, James, we'll see which way it goes. One more day to go in this. As you said, unless the judge just calls it into it either today or early tomorrow. Thanks for bringing that to us. And stand by. We'll get back to you a little later on. First, the towel. What was done with the towel? The towel was packaged, and then it was eventually provided to the FBI. What was done with the firearm? The firearm was also packaged and then provided to the FBI as well. Did the firearm go to the FBI or the ATF? Oh, sorry, correction. It first went to the FBI to be in their capacity, and then it was then sent to the ATF lab. Okay. And the rounds, the cartridge and cartridge cases. Yes. All those were packaged, originally provided to the FBI, then was sent to the ATF lab. All right. And were each of those items tested? Yes, they were. And in the testing, were they photographed? Yes. And were they photographed by the ATF when they were tested? Yes, they were. Have you reviewed their photographs? Yes. And were you previously shown state's exhibits 19, 20, 21, and 22? Yes. And are those the photographs that you received back from the ATF of those cartridges and the cartridge case? Yes. Did they have the same appearance and etchings that you saw when you observed them removed from the gun? Yes. And did those photographs accurately capture those etchings? Yes. I move to admit state's exhibits 19 through 22. Mr. Burton. All right. I'll note the standing objections. Those objections overruled, and 19, 20, 21, and 22 are admitted. As to publication, Mr. McBride. I move to publish these exhibits at all three levels. All right. Any further objection from? No further objection. Thank you. Again, I note the standing objections. Those are overruled. They may be published both in the courtroom and captured by the media camera. Let us start with exhibit 19, please. What are we looking at here in exhibit 19? This is the cartridge case that was recovered from the gun. And what position was this in in the gun? This was the, or this is what was in the chamber. Okay. In the chamber, meaning that's where a cartridge is before it's, or when it is fired, correct? Yes. Do you notice an inscription or an etching on this cartridge case? Yes, I do. Will you read what that says? Yes. Notice is bulge. And if we can go down to page 2 of the exhibit, will you read what this says? O-W-O, what's? And to page 3? This. And question mark, correct? Yes, question mark. All right. If we go to state's exhibit 20, is this a photograph of one of the cartridges that was found in the gun? Yes, it is. And what are we looking at here in this view of page 1 on exhibit 20? This is the head stamp of it, and it says it is a, according to the head stamp, it is a Remington .30-06 Springfield. Is that a different caliber than a .223 round? Yes, it is. Will you look at page 2 of exhibit 20? Will you read the markings here? Hey, fascist. And page 3? Catch. And page 4? Up arrow, right arrow, down arrow, down arrow, down arrow. All right. Let's go to exhibit 21. And was this another round that was found in the gun? Yes. Will you read the inscription here? Old Bella Chow. Page 2. Chow Chow. All right. Let's go to exhibit 22. Another round that was found from the gun, correct? Yes. Will you please read the letters here? If you read. Page 2. This, your, correction, this, you are. Page 3. Gay. And page 4. LMAO. The only thing I can imagine is maybe perhaps some pieces of evidence might have been shown to him over that Zoom capability that they didn't want that shown. But otherwise, the video to me is innocuous as far as from a visual perspective. But one thing I did want to point out that I don't want to get overlooked is how important this video was and that interview was from a housekeeping perspective. And what I mean by is how he laid the foundation for so many other crucial pieces of evidence. The text messages. He's laying that foundation. There's no problem now about establishing who those are from and who received those. He's saying, yes, those are the text messages sent from the defendant to myself. The Discord messages, same thing. The letter, same thing. He's establishing the foundation for all of these to be admitted into evidence. And crucially, he is identifying Tyler Robinson on those video stills. No one else has been able to do this. He is saying, at least about as close as he was willing to get, that that looks like Tyler Robinson. That is a huge piece of evidence because that entire surveillance now has foundationally been laid. OK, let's bring in Joshua Rutter. He is a Fox News contributor and criminal defense attorney. We talked at length about this earlier today, Josh, on America Reports. While Lance Twigg seemed to suggest that Tyler Robinson did not appear overtly political in any of their discussions, he definitely, we saw this in the text messages that were exchanged on Discord, saw Charlie Kirk as a purveyor of hate. Yeah, that was an interesting moment during his testimony through that recorded statement where he said that he didn't hear him talk much about politics or even Charlie Kirk. Whereas his text messages revealed that he was nearly obsessed with him. And even the etchings that he put on the bullets seemed to be that he was obsessing over this moment that he wanted to have in this assassination that was all targeted at this man, that he said that he just could no longer deal with his hate. So whatever conversations they may have had, how honest Lance Twiggs was being about all of that, I think it's very clear through the text messages, the Discord chats, the letter that he left behind that he intended to kill Charlie Kirk because of the person that he was and what he stood for. So in this interview, the things that really stuck out to me were the talk about the engraved bullet casings and apparently Tyler Robinson's reaction in court when that was brought up, the still images of Robinson on the campus and in the stairwell. And then when he asked Robinson in person, Robinson in person, the day after the shooting and the day after they exchanged those messages, he got an in-person confession when Robinson said, yeah, it was me. Yeah, so if you're counting, this is now an in-person confession, a confession over text messages, a confession over Discord and a confession in a letter. That is a lot of times that a person has admitted their involvement in this murder and at some point showed remorse over it and at other points showed that he was proud over his actions. As far as connecting himself to this crime through his own words, either coming out of his mouth or through his own hand. He has certainly done a lot of the work for the prosecution. Add to that the case that we had from the rest of the week with the forensics regarding the surveillance and the DNA. And now today we have the bullets. It is a very, very powerful case that the prosecution has presented after resting just earlier this afternoon. In those text messages, Tyler Robinson appeared to be very concerned about the rifle that he said that he dropped outside of the scene of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Here's a little bit of that exchange. He says, delete this exchange, first of all. And he goes on to say, my dad wants photos of the rifle. He says Grandpa wants to know who has what. The feds released a photo of the rifle and it's very unique. He's calling me right now, not answering. I mean, when you put together the pieces of this puzzle, the purpose of the preliminary hearing is to find out whether or not this will be held over for trial. It would seem that the prosecution more than met their burden in holding this over. I think absolutely. I mean, if they were simply going in to try to reach that low threshold, they probably met that on day one or two. But bear in mind, too, this is a death penalty case. And so a lot of this evidence they're going to have to use later on to convince jurors after a conviction to put him to death, the greatest punishment that we have in this country. So some of this evidence about the etchings and understanding how he almost viewed this as a joke is going to go a long way with those jurors and might be part of the reason why prosecutors wanted to make sure that it was admissible at this point in the proceedings. Just real quick for us, Josh, do you believe that this will ever get to trial or do you think he'll cut some sort of a plea deal with the prosecution? I think after this week, his team is probably seriously thinking about going to the prosecution and asking for that hat in hand. But it's up to the prosecution whether or not they want to take the death penalty off the table. All right, we'll see where it goes. Josh Ritter, as always, thanks for the analysis. Appreciate it. Absolutely. And breaking tonight's scene for Martha starts right now. John and Sandra, thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Trace Gallagher in for Martha McCallum. This is the story. Tyler Robinson's former roommate says Robinson confessed to killing Charlie Kirk and said that he wished he hadn't done it. Lance Twiggs making that claim in an interview with investigators. Prosecutors playing the video today at the preliminary hearing to decide whether Robinson will go on trial. An agent also reading a text exchange between Twiggs and Robinson. Watch this. Lance replies, you weren't the one who did it, right? And Tyler says, I am. I'm sorry. And Lance says, why? And Tyler says, why did I do it? And Lance says, yeah. Tyler says, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. Criminal defense attorneys Donna Rotuno and Josh Ritter are at the courthouse, and constitutional attorney Jonathan Turley is standing by live. But first, Matt Finn is also live at the courthouse in Provo, Utah. Matt. Hi, Trace. We just got some new details from one of our reporters inside of the courtroom who says that Tyler Robinson today was intently watching the video of Lance Twiggs' testimony, whereas Tyler Robinson had not been intently watching other previous videos, even turning his head away from the screen in earlier days. Also, his lead attorney, Kathy Nestor, has not been sitting directly next to him for the past two days. In previous proceedings, she had been sitting close to him, kind of comforting him at times. She has not been doing that the past two days. Also, our reporter in the courtroom says Erica Kirk was audibly crying today and that Robinson was squirming when Lance Twiggs discussed the engraving of the bullets. Now, this is the first time in ten months that we have heard from Lance Twiggs, who has largely been hidden from the public since the shooting last September. In that video testimony today, Lance Twiggs testified that Tyler Robinson confessed to killing Charlie Kirk and then afterwards says he wished that he had not. Did he talk about what he had done? Didn't go into detail. I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before, and he said it was. I started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn't done it. And then kept going around and just doing stuff. Twiggs testified that he and Robinson started dating a few months after moving in together. Twiggs says after the shooting on September 10th, Robinson was updating him in real time about trying to retrieve the rifle he left behind near the campus, which was ultimately recovered by law enforcement. An agent testified about texts that Robinson was sending to Twiggs. Getting worried, hard to know for sure, but I'm not finding my rifle. Could be in the wrong spot. Lance says, do you think they found it? And Tyler says, don't know. They haven't published anything if they have. Twiggs also testified on video that he had not heard Tyler Robinson talk about Charlie Kirk before and Robinson didn't really talk about LGBTQ and gender issues. If Robinson talked about politics, it was usually related to President Trump or current policies. Twiggs says Robinson started engraving bullets for what he was describing as a hunting or a traveling trip about one month before Kirk was shot. Law enforcement says that those engraved bullets were recovered. And in court, Robinson was seen squirming when the bullets were discussed. Back to you. Matt Finn, live for us at the courthouse. Matt, thank you. Let's bring in constitutional law attorney Jonathan Turley, GW law professor and Fox News contributor professor. It's great to have you on the show. What I don't get about this whole thing is we played the tape today in court. They played the tape today in court. And it was 20 minutes versus 37 minutes because there was a lot of redactions, a lot of things taken out of that. And the worry was that the defense kept saying, listen, the prosecution is going to say this is a confession. And then in the tape, the tape says at one point in time, Lance Twiggs says that Tyler Robinson, quote, started crying a bit, saying he wishes he hadn't done it. That's a confession. That's it right there. What were they trying to hide? Well, it really comes across as confession by surrogate. And it's very compelling. I think most people watching today would wonder, why don't they just go to verdict? Because it's so overwhelming and it's so complete. But what's really interesting about this is that usually witnesses have only part of a picture. It's like looking through a prism and you have to piece them together. This is really a witness that has it all. I mean, he has the premeditation in the form of a note left under a keyboard for him by Robinson, has a contemporary statement right after the shooting, an alleged confession, and that he repeats those statements the day afterwards. He has details that lay the foundation for all the evidence the prosecutors are going to be bringing in. I mean, I got to tell you, I've been a criminal defense attorney my whole career, and I've rarely seen anything like this. I mean, I can't see any cognizable defense because he's obviously mentally competent. He was highly functioning. It was premeditated. He carried off an assassination for political purposes. Yeah, and I'm wondering, as you look at this as a former defense attorney and as a law professor, when you look at the DNA and you look at the text messages and then you listen to the recording of Lance Twiggs, which to you, Professor, comes across as the most powerful? Which will have the most impact on the jury? You know, it's interesting because at the end of the day, the DNA evidence on the weapon, the carvings on the bullets, those are going to be pretty darn dispositive for a jury. But I got to tell you, the thing that's really going to harden that jury is the rather matter-of-fact way in which he's texting his lover and saying, yeah, you know, I'm really worried I won't get my grandpa's gun back. You know, he just killed a national leader, and he's just fretting about whether grandpa's gun is going to be taken by the police. Yeah. Can I just put that up on the screen very quickly to give the context in here? This is what Professor Turley is talking about. It's in the Utah County charging documents. It says, quoting here, Twiggs, just stay safe. Robinson, I will. Robinson, I'm more worried what my old man would do if I didn't bring back grandpa's rifle. Robinson, he's far scarier than any fed. I mean, that really is very compelling. Professor, stand by very quickly. I want to go back to Matt Finn live outside the courthouse, because Matt has gotten some more information from inside the courthouse. Matt, what are we learning? Trace, just more details coming from inside the courtroom from our digital reporter. When they got to the point discussing the rifle that was used, Tyler Robinson was squirming, apparently uncomfortable, swinging in his chair, scratching his nose. He looked uncomfortable with the texts that were being discussed. Also, Erica Kirk was looking down, leaning forward, not looking at the screen, showing those texts. A reporter also said Erica was audibly crying throughout the proceeding today. When they got to the part about Lance was when he was asking Tyler about the rifle and for hunting, that very graphic detail about the nature of the gun that Robinson said did well in the killing. That is when Tyler Robinson's mom started crying and wiping her eyes. Charlie Kirk's mother had her hand on Erica's upper arm and shoulder, and they were both tearful today. After showing the Discord chat logs, the prosecution also put the note from Tyler Robinson on the screen. That's the handwritten note that's been discussed that Tyler Robinson left for his lover. Our reporter inside of the courtroom says it was a very lengthy, full-page, handwritten note, Trace. Matt Finn, back to you as the news warrants. Thank you. Meantime, at the courthouse, we've also got Donna Rotunno, criminal defense attorney, host of the Crime and Justice podcast, and a Fox News contributor, along with Josh Ritter, criminal defense attorney, former prosecutor, and a Fox News contributor as well. Donna, to you first. What I was kind of curious about when they started talking about the flavor inside the courtroom was the fact that Robinson, Tyler Robinson, was squirming when there was talk about engraving of the bullets. I mean, after all the testimony we heard, after the tape, after the apparent confession through surrogate, as Jonathan Turley was saying, why the engraving of the bullets would make him squirm? What's your theory on that? I'll tell you why. Because they want to make a big deal about other things found at that scene. The unspent bullets, the unfired bullet, the holster that was outside. And they want to make a big deal about these things and what they didn't do. So the reason that those engraved bullets are so important is because they know that the bullet that was fired at Charlie Kirk was engraved. And so that is just one more piece of evidence that ties him to this. And frankly, the fact that you have Mr. Twiggs talking about the fact that he asked about engraving them, he told them where the item was that he could use, the tool he could use to do that. It was in the pantry. I mean, these are very detailed pieces of information. And you saw Mr. Twiggs. He testified. He's talked to the officers. He seemed very calm. He didn't seem bothered to be there. He didn't seem like he was under duress. He answered their questions. He seemed very forthcoming. So to me, that one piece of evidence really links Tyler Robinson in a way that other pieces of evidence could possibly be refuted. This is not one of them. So to me, that was extremely important today and maybe one of the most important things. And it was something we have not heard about up until this point. Yeah, I mean, there was just so much compelling evidence, Josh Ritter. When you look at the totality, I mean, you and I four nights ago talked about the fact that the threshold seemed to have been reached on Monday. I mean, on Monday, the judge is like, yeah, we're going to trial. And now they've just put out so much information and so much evidence that you made the point earlier, like, you know, you maybe walk back in the court saying we're done. I mean, that's a possibility. Is that fair? Yeah, I think we reached that threshold day one. I mean, Don Jr. talked about this day one. He was convinced. And I think everybody else was. And I do think they reached that threshold, a probable cause. Now, today, it has been a flood of new information that makes this case overwhelming in my view. And all of it is information being supplied by Robinson himself. The text messages, the discord chat, even the engravings on the bullet, the letter, all of this is from his either his own mouth or his own hand. This is incredibly powerful evidence when you start to get to a trial because jurors may take issue with things like ballistics and they may take issue with experts disagreeing on DNA. But when you start talking about things that the defendant said, confessions to the crime, there is very little that a defense attorney can do with that type of evidence. Yeah, I want to bring back in Professor Turley very quickly on this because the charging documents also have this detailed note that Tyler Robinson left for the roommate. This is filed on September 16th and it reads, quoting here on September 10, 2025. The roommate received a text message from Robinson, which said, quoting here, Drop what you are doing. Look under my keyboard. The roommate looked under the keyboard and found a note that stated I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it. Police found a photograph of this note. I mean, again, it just mounts. Professor, it just mounts. I mean, all of this evidence. And I'm just wondering here that that is this stuff. All is the defense have any chance to knock any of this stuff out? I think it would be very hard to knock much of this out. But keep in mind, you could take out 98 percent of this stuff and still have a slam dunk conviction. I mean, that's how bad all of this is. I mean, it is. There's a truly other worldly aspect to these communications. This man just engaged in a political assassination. But he's worried about what daddy might do if he doesn't return the gun. I mean, it's it's such a just an awful insight into the type of mind that would commit this type of crime. He just murdered a human being. And yet he sort of joking about how, you know, grandpa's gun still has that caliber weight to it. And how impressed he is with it. It's that type of thing is not going to go well with the jury. But you have to put something on the table of value to the prosecutors. Besides, I can save you the time of a trial. The problem here is that the prosecutors have nothing that they need from the defense. Their client has already handed them a slam dunk case for conviction. So why would they agree to a plea? So, you know, the question here is whether he's going to decide, yeah, I don't want to go through a trial here because there's no point to it. Maybe the judge will cut me some slack on the other end. But I don't see any. It's not just a lack of a defense. I don't even see a good angle to try to engage in meaningful plea discussions for a reduction. Yeah. My next question was going to be, is this the time they start talking about trying to get rid of the death penalty and getting something lesser? But I think you answered that, Professor. Thank you, Josh. Josh Ritter. Thank you. Donna Rotano. Thank you as well. We will keep watching this. The court should be back in session in about 15 minutes and 30 seconds. Of course, we'll bring that to you live. Meantime, Jason Chaffetz, who was at the Utah event where Charlie Kirk was murdered on the shooting testimony. We just heard from Tyler Robinson's alleged lover and roommate saying that Robinson wished that he had not done it. Coming right back. Everyone, I'm Kaylee McEnany along with Lisa Booth, Harold Ford Jr., Brian Kilmeade and Jimmy Fela. Who let him in? It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is The Five. Fox News alert. A critical and emotional day four of the Charlie Kirk preliminary murder hearing. The court hearing for the first time a recorded interview from Tyler Robinson's former roommate and former lover, Lance Twiggs. Here's some sound from that where Lance Twiggs claimed that Tyler Robinson told him he wished he had not done it. So he acted erratically. Was he pacing? Was he just sitting down, relaxing? No, he was walking around a lot. And that's within the home? Mm-hmm. And did he talk about what he had done? Didn't go into detail. I just asked him in person if what he said was truer than I had before and he said it was. I started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn't done it. Let's go right to Claudia Cowan in Provo, Utah. Claudia. Well, good afternoon, Kaylee, here on day four of Tyler Robinson's preliminary hearing. We finally got to this highly anticipated police interview with Lance Twiggs, Tyler Robinson's former lover and roommate, and the prosecution's star witness in their case against the accused assassin. Judge Tony Graff ordered that much of the 37-minute long interview be played with significant redactions to ensure Robinson receives a fair trial. But by any measure, what was played here today was incriminating. In the video interview, Twiggs tells prosecutor Ryan McBride about his relationship with Robinson and messages he received from him the night and day after Charlie Kirk was killed. He said on September 10th Robinson left early, saying he had a long drive to work, and heard from him again at 11 that night when he got a text message directing him to a note he had left. That's when the courtroom monitor goes to black, but the audio continues. That was the note under his keyboard that he was referring to in the first text of that chain. So where did you find this? On his desk underneath his computer keyboard. Prosecutors say that note and text exchanges include confessions and a motive, including a text where Robinson, when Twiggs asked why did he do it, replies, Twiggs also positively identified Robinson as the man seen in surveillance video at the crime scene, saying he recognized his clothes and his sunglasses. Twiggs also testified Robinson was trying to get hold of a rifle and was interested in engraving bullets for an upcoming hunting trip. The court saw pictures of bullets found inside the suspected murder weapon, with messages like, hey fascist, and if you can read this, you are gay. Now this testimony about rifles and hunting brought Erica Kirk to tears. She has been fighting throughout this whole week to get access to as much evidence as possible to combat wild conspiracy theories and to protect her own First Amendment rights. Kaylee, we may not have seen everything that the prosecution have, but what we did see in court today would appear to go a long way to helping the prosecution prove that there is probable cause to hold Tyler Robinson responsible for her husband's murder. Yeah, without question. Claudia, thank you. Let's bring in Fox News contributor and former L.A. Deputy D.A. Josh Ritter. Josh, I want to play a soundbite and then I have a question for you, but this is the moment Lance Twiggs talks about those engravings. You just heard Claudia say that some of this testimony drove Erica Kirk to tears. Listen to this. Was he engraving bullets before this? Yeah, I don't remember exactly when, but he had said he was planning to go hunting with his family, and he asked me if we had a Dremel because he said he wanted to engrave messages on bullets. And I just told him where a Dremel was and told him to make sure he doesn't set off a bullet on accident in the house, but I didn't really think about it until then. So are we talking like a year before? Oh, no, not that long. It would have been, I'd say, at most a month before this was when he was asking. So, Josh, I've read testimony that, or some color from the courtroom, that Robinson's becoming visibly agitated during some of this and talking about the engravings. Do you think he's realizing that it's not just a mountain of evidence and it's an avalanche? Could this drive him to a plea deal? Yeah, I think he's seeing the walls closing in. There was an avalanche of evidence today. We had heard a lot of evidence before today, but today was really the lion's share of it, and some of the strongest evidence, too. We're talking about evidence coming from his former partner, his roommate, a person that he had a romantic relationship with, who's essentially giving the most powerful evidence in this prelim yet, talking about the confessions that he made out of his own mouth to this crime, along with the text messages and the messaging online and the letter that he left behind. All of this is incredibly convincing evidence, and, yeah, he's probably starting to think to himself that whatever his attorneys had been convincing him of before now might not be all that true, and this is a very convincing case for the prosecution. What I'm wondering is, if I submitted this script for Law & Order, they'd hand it back to me and say there's no mystery here, there's no intrigue. This is the craziest case ever. You have the gun, you have the admission, the handwritten note, you have the corroboration, you have it in writing, you've got the text exchanges. You have him worrying about his fingerprints, you have his change of clothes, you have the video of him on campus, you have the interaction, you have him get the confirmation of the identification that that's him from his boyfriend, trans lover. So you have all this together. The question is, if you're the defense, do you see any holes to pursue right now, or do you say, make your decision, judge, I will see you on trial? I don't think they have any holes to poke in this case right now, with this lower standard that we're talking about at the preliminary hearing of just probable cause. And as far as how they handle this case going forward, to me there's two strategies. They go hat in hand to the prosecutor's office and they beg for something less than the death penalty, or it's this war of attrition that we've seen. We are past the 300-day mark right now, and we're just getting to the preliminary hearing. So they've already tried to employ that, to just try to wear the prosecution down, and perhaps we'll see more of that. But if this goes to trial, I agree with you. The evidence runs the entire gamut, from forensics to DNA to surveillance to his own confessions. It's a very, very powerful case. I don't see any obvious holes, unless there is something that catastrophically falls apart for the prosecution. I don't see the prosecution offering him anything less than the death penalty. It'll be remarkable if we see any kind of plea agreement before this reaches trial. Josh, Lisa Booth here. Thanks for doing such a great job breaking this down for us. Obviously, you look at the publicness of this trial and the information that has surfaced. What role does this preliminary hearing play with the eventual jury pool? So that's been a big question and something that the defense has tried to focus on and why they're making much of their arguments as to why some of this evidence should not be shown in court. They keep talking about how we cannot prejudice our client, meaning we cannot somehow spoil the potential jury pool that they will already have made up their minds before they even get called into court as potential jurors. But this is not the first case that we've had in front of a camera. We've been doing this for decades now, and we know how to handle this as a judicial system. We have very robust voir dire and jury questionnaires. I think they're going to be able to find a fair jury. What this is doing more than anything is probably putting to rest a lot of these bizarre and circulating conspiracy theories so that people can actually see the evidence against him. Josh, that was going to be my question. We've got so many moon bats on social media trying to exploit the notoriety of this trial. Today was, by all accounts, a really bad day to be a social media agitator, would you not say? I think you're exactly right. It did seem as though the prosecution was going down a checklist of every kind of conspiracy theory that was circulating online and almost answering it in turn. I mean, we got down to the idea that he was familiar with that weapon before, how that weapon could have certainly fired from that distance, all the things that seem to have been questioned online. We're connecting him through DNA. We're connecting him through surveillance. I mean, one of the things that shouldn't get overlooked with the testimony that we heard from Lance Tweaks today is he identified Tyler Robinson from steals of that surveillance video. That's the first time that we've heard that. Before now, it's always been a person matching his description, and he said in court through this recording that that does look like Tyler Robinson. Josh, this is supposed to end tomorrow. We are supposed to finally, after 300 days, get a plea from Tyler Robinson. Does that happen? Does this end tomorrow? You know, if the prosecution is wrapping things up today, I think we've got a chance. When you're counting witnesses, it looks like we're getting down to the last couple. But bear in mind, too, there's argument at the end of all of this. And if we've learned anything from these attorneys, they like to take a lot of time to voice their arguments in court. The judge has said he fully intends to have this done. If you're asking me, I'm not going to say I'm going to be shocked if it bleeds on beyond this Friday. All right, well, get cozy in Utah there, Josh Fritter. Thank you. Guys, can we just remind me and remind the audience, what is the point of this preliminary hearing? Why are we seeing so much evidence before we get to trial? Well, it's a great question, because if you ask, the answer is simply to set a standard of beyond a probable cause, right? That's a lower standard. It's not beyond a reasonable doubt, but just probable cause. So you would think that they had met that early on, day one, perhaps, that they had met that. Now, the prosecution's allowed to handle the case as they would like, but I think this is probably going beyond what they would need to show. But I think it's important for all of us to see, too, because we are seeing a lot of premeditation in this case, especially when it comes to the transcribing on those bullets. Remember, too, this is a death penalty case. So at some point, if things go the way the prosecution intends, this will be sitting in front of a jury, and they're going to be asking them not just to convict this man of murder, but to then put him to death. And these types of things, writing on bullets, thinking about this, obsessing about this, are going to go a long way towards convincing jurors that this is, in fact, the type of person that deserves the greatest punishment that we have in this country. But first, breaking tonight, an interview with the former partner of the man accused of assassinating conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was played during today's preliminary hearing. Senior correspondent Claudia Cowan is in Provo, Utah, again tonight. She's got the details for us. Good evening, Claudia. Good evening, John. The prosecution house now rested its case, and now it's the defense's turn, with witnesses from the ATF taking the stand. After more delays this morning due to objections by the defense and Erica Kirk's attorney, that much-anticipated interview with Tyler Robinson's former roommate and romantic partner finally played in court. Lance Twiggs was given immunity for doing this recorded interview with the prosecution back in April. Twiggs says Robinson left early on the morning of September 10th, the day Charlie Kirk was killed, and claims not to have heard from him until 11 that night. Text messages were shown and read in court, where prosecutors say Robinson admitted to Twiggs that he was the one who assassinated the conservative commentator, and had left a confession note under his keyboard. Twiggs finally saw Robinson in person the next day. Did he talk about what he had done? It didn't go into detail. I just asked him in person what he said was truer than I before, and he said it was. He started crying a little bit and said he wishes he hadn't done it. Twiggs was asked about security camera images of Robinson and says it appeared to be him. He recognized his shoes and sunglasses. Twiggs says while Robinson talked about politics, he did not specifically mention Kirk before the day of the shooting. How about political issues? So did you ever talk about gender identity issues and LGBTQ rights? No, not really. Usually if he did talk about politics stuff, it was relating to Trump or current policies being issued or voted on. Twiggs also testified that before the shooting, Robinson was trying to get a hold of a rifle, and was interested in engraving bullets for an upcoming hunting trip. Engraved bullets found in the suspected murder weapon were shown in court. That evidence brought Erica Kirk to tears. Only a portion of the 37-minute interview was shown in court today, but the judge says he will consider the entire Twiggs recording when he determines whether there is enough probable cause to move this case to trial. This preliminary hearing, John, is expected to wrap up tomorrow. All right, we'll look forward to more of that. Claudia Catlin-Forrest with the update. Claudia, thank you.