The former head of security for Charlie Kirk sued the podcaster Candace Owens on Thursday for defamation, claiming that she falsely implicated him in a conspiracy to assassinate Mr. Kirk.<\/p>\n
The former security chief, Brian Harpole, alleged that Ms. Owens, a right-wing firebrand, inaccurately accused him of meeting with Mr. Kirk\u2019s wife, Erika, at a military base a day before Mr. Kirk was shot<\/a> at Utah Valley University in September. He is also suing Mitch Snow, a retired Army sergeant who stated on Ms. Owens\u2019s podcast that he was an eyewitness to what he described as the secret encounter.<\/p>\n In the 69-page lawsuit<\/a>, Mr. Harpole, who owns a private security firm and worked for Mr. Kirk for several years, accused Ms. Owens of \u201cengaging in a coordinated and deliberate campaign designed to defame\u201d him.<\/p>\n He denied any involvement in any plot to assassinate Mr. Kirk and called Ms. Owens a \u201cconspiracy theorist\u201d who displayed a \u201cpattern of seeking public attention and media exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Owens responded to the lawsuit on her daily podcast on Thursday evening, calling it \u201cinsane,\u201d challenging Mr. Harpole\u2019s allegations and denying any wrongdoing. \u201cI\u2019ve only ever been interested in getting to the truth of what happened to Charlie Kirk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Ms. Owens said she had no comment beyond what she said on her podcast. Mr. Snow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville, is the latest volley in an internal conflict that has been roiling the country\u2019s political right, with factions forming around divisive issues like the war against Iran, President Trump\u2019s economic and immigration policies, and the circumstances around the killing of Mr. Kirk, who co-founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA.<\/p>\n Ms. Owens has placed herself at the center of many of those disputes, especially when it comes to Mr. Kirk, who for many years was a close friend of hers. She has made his killing a primary focus of her podcast, framing it without evidence as the product of a far-reaching conspiracy involving Israel, France and the U.S. military. And she has repeatedly suggested to her nearly six million YouTube subscribers that Mrs. Kirk, the activist\u2019s widow, was involved in an elaborate cover-up.<\/p>\n The commissioner of Utah\u2019s Department of Public Safety has said Tyler Robinson, who was charged with murdering Mr. Kirk, acted alone, although Mr. Trump and others have broadly accused \u201cthe radical left\u201d with inciting the violent act.<\/p>\n In July, Ms. Owens was sued for defamation by Brigitte Macron, the wife<\/a> of the French president Emmanuel Macron, for claiming she is transgender. In recent months Ms. Owens has sparred publicly with the right-wing influencers Jessica Reed Kraus and Laura Loomer, who called her \u201cdepraved\u201d because of her treatment of Mrs. Kirk. The lawsuit from Ms. Macron is still pending in Delaware state court.<\/p>\n Last month, Mr. Trump got involved, posting on Truth Social<\/a> that Ms. Owens is an \u201cextremely Low IQ individual\u201d and sharing a doctored image that referred to her as \u201cvile person of the year.\u201d He also called Ms. Owens\u2019s claims about Ms. Macron \u201cdespicable.\u201d Two members of Congress this week introduced a bipartisan House resolution<\/a> condemning Ms. Owens, as well a left-wing livestreamer, for \u201cantisemitic hate-filled rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n