Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has fumbled the ball trying to get MAGA to chill on insane conspiracy theories about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The shooting of the far-right activist at a campus event in Utah almost three weeks ago sparked a variety of unlikely scenarios, from the killing having been a Mossad hit job to claims that a hoax “blood bag” was used and that Kirk is, in fact, alive and well.
But it’s on the subject of a private plane leaving Provo airport, around seven miles from the scene at Utah Valley University, just an hour after Kirk was shot that Duffy has now felt the need to intervene.
“I want to clear up a few points about the private jet departing Provo Airport shortly after the Charlie Kirk assassination took place,” the transportation secretary posted on X late Sunday.
Conspiracy theorists have had a field day with the fact that after departing the runway, the Bombardier jet appears to have briefly disabled its tracking system around 30 minutes into the flight.
It eventually flew to Page, Arizona, before returning to Provo, which tinfoil-hat sleuths have taken as evidence that the assassin and/or their accomplices used the aircraft to escape the area after Kirk was killed.
Federal prosecutors have charged Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utahn, with Kirk’s slaying. Despite President Donald Trump’s promise that his “administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity,” there is no evidence that the suspect was not acting alone.
Digging into the jet conspiracy, Duffy told his followers “the plane’s owner stated that radar services with air traffic control (ATC) were ended by mutual agreement,” clarifying that “private pilots can voluntarily request to cancel radar services, and that ATC may approve.”
He added that “even when radar services are canceled by the pilot, the FAA’s radar still captures the aircraft in the air,” and that the “FAA has also stated that the transponder was never turned off,” which would account for why conspiracy theorists were able to find the plane on flight-tracking sites in the first place.
Derek Maxfield, owner of Komigo, which in turn operates the Bombardier jet, has already denied the flight had anything at all to do with the shooting. The flight was pre-scheduled, and the first leg to Arizona involved only two pilots and no passengers.
“As often happens, unfortunately, in the wake of such terrifying and public events, a variety of baseless theories and suspicions around Mr. Kirk’s murder immediately took hold on social media, including one that has unfairly impacted our family,” Maxfield wrote of the fervent online speculation about the flight only the day after Kirk’s murder.
He further called for the “focus [to] remain on praying for and supporting those” who were affected by the killing.
Any attempt on Duffy’s part to persuade MAGA’s armchair detectives that there’s nothing to see here, in particular by reassuring them that “statements from the FAA and the plane’s owner are not in contention,” would appear to have been comprehensively undercut by the transportation chief’s sign-off to his Sunday post.
“I truly appreciate how many people are committed to getting to the truth,” he wrote. “My goal is to be as open and helpful as possible throughout this process.”
The comments under his post suggest he failed to silence the chatter. “Most of us wish to believe you,” one person wrote. “However, this explanation (when combined with the absurd official law enforcement version of the events that day) just doesn’t ring true. What happened to transparency?”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Transportation for comment.
