Candace Owens Claims New 'Damning Document' Shows TPUSA Helped Choose Venue for Charlie Kirk Before His Death

Candace Owens has claimed that Turning Point USA headquarters chose the time and location for the Charlie Kirk event at Utah Valley University before his assassination, after a newly released independent review documented that a TPUSA field representative initiated the process of arranging the event.

Owens made the claim after Utah Valley University published an independent review into the planning, security, and response surrounding the September 10, 2025 event, where Kirk was fatally shot.

The review found that a TPUSA field representative asked the university's student chapter to seek the Fountain Courtyard for the event and later documented concerns about the outdoor venue and security arrangements.

The findings have prompted Owens to revisit her longstanding questions about how quickly the event was organised. She argued that they contradict the public account that the local TPUSA chapter had requested the event independently.

Owens described the review as the 'most damning document' she had seen and claimed that 'everything about the planning was unnatural and it came straight from TPUSA Headquarters'.

However, the independent review does not conclude that TPUSA planned or facilitated Kirk's assassination. That connection is an allegation made by Owens and commentator Ian Carroll, rather than a finding of the report.

Owens Points to TPUSA's Role in Kirk's Event Planning

The key detail highlighted by Owens appears in the review's timeline of how the event came together.

On July 10, 2025, the president of the UVU chapter of TPUSA contacted the university's Clubs Office after being asked by a TPUSA field representative to enquire about using the Fountain Courtyard for an event on September 10.

The student's email said the TPUSA representative had asked him to reach out and described the representative as being 'quite vague' about what the event was.

The formal request was subsequently submitted through the UVU student chapter. The review therefore documents a role for TPUSA's organisation in initiating the process, although it does not describe the event as having been selected by 'TPUSA headquarters' as an institution.

That distinction is important to the claim being made by Owens.

She said she had been 'gaslit' for a year after questioning the circumstances surrounding the event and argued that the public had been told the local chapter had requested it when, in her view, the review showed that headquarters had initiated the process.

'They represented to the public that the chapter requested it. No. Headquarters requested it and were being vague to the Chapter Leader about it,' Owens wrote.

The review also documents that TPUSA later played a significant role in the decision to keep the event at the outdoor Fountain Courtyard.

At an August 25 planning meeting, UVU officials raised concerns about the outdoor location, anticipated attendance, possible protests, crowd management, and access control. Alternative venues were discussed, but TPUSA requested that the event remain in the courtyard.

The report said the decision created additional security challenges because the outdoor setting was more difficult to control. It also found that key security arrangements were not formalised, including the absence of a comprehensive written security assessment or event action plan.

The review further found that TPUSA security and UVU police failed to ensure that a joint pre-event security briefing and walkthrough took place.

Candace Owens Links the Event Planning to Kirk's Killing

Owens' claims go beyond the documented planning decisions.

In a post responding to Ian Carroll, Carroll argued that TPUSA's account of the event's origins had been contradicted by the review. He claimed that headquarters had specifically told the UVU chapter to request the particular time and location and described this as aligning with a 'planned assassination'.

Owens responded by agreeing that the findings were 'extremely damning'.

She has argued that the fact a TPUSA representative initiated the request for the specific venue and date raises questions about the circumstances surrounding Kirk's killing. In another post, she said the review confirmed what she had 'suspected all along'.

But neither the UVU review nor its summary says that TPUSA selected the event arrangements in order to facilitate an assassination.

The report's findings concern planning and security failures. It says UVU had a strong foundation of safety policies and resources but that their implementation was inconsistent before and during the event. It also recommends clearer responsibility for venue selection, ticketing, access control, and security planning at major events.

The report specifically states that its project team found no UVU employee or agent had acted in bad faith or with wilful and wanton disregard for safety during the events leading up to the assassination or afterwards.

The report does not make a similar finding that TPUSA planned the shooting.

That means Owens' interpretation and the review's documented findings need to be kept separate.

The evidence establishes that a TPUSA field representative initiated the event request through the local chapter and that TPUSA later requested that the event remain outdoors despite concerns raised by university officials. It does not establish that those decisions were made as part of a plan to have Kirk killed.

Owens has also accused TPUSA of repeatedly lying to the public about the event's planning. That allegation is not established by the review itself. The report documents the sequence of communications and decisions, but it does not conclude that TPUSA deliberately misled the public.

Her posts have also criticised Erika Kirk, saying information about the planning was 'at her fingertips' and accusing her of allowing employees to lie publicly. The review does not establish what Erika Kirk knew, when she knew it or whether she had any role in the public account of how the event was arranged.

Owens ended her series of posts with a brief message addressed to Kirk.

'I weep for you, Charlie,' she wrote.

The independent review has nevertheless provided a detailed new account of the decisions made before the shooting, including the involvement of TPUSA's field representative, the choice of the outdoor venue and security concerns raised by UVU. Those findings have given Owens new material for her criticism of Turning Point USA.