FBI Director Kash Patel delivered a tribute to the late Charlie Kirk during a press conference on the arrest of Kirk’s assassin on Friday: “Rest now, brother. We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Patel had flown to Utah Thursday to assist investigators. Though media claimed that Patel had “botched” the investigation, the FBI would arrest Tyler Robinson, 22, within a few hours of Patel’s arrival on the ground.
Robinson was arrested with the help of video and photographic evidence from Utah Valley University, where Kirk had been speaking when he was shot and killed.
He praised the work of the FBI in finding the killer after the public demanded Kirk’s assassin be found and brought to justice. “The FBI answered that call, diligently,” Patel said.
He then added: “To my friend, Charlie Kirk. Rest now, brother. We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Valhalla is a reference to the afterlife, from Norse mythology. It is associated with warriors and gods, and a frequent theme in popular superhero films and literature.
Patel and Kirk became close within the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, and were two of its most celebrated figures during the years when President Donald Trump was out of office, and when he and his supporters were fighting innumerable legal challenges brought by Democrats and the Biden administration.
Kirk had been a strong supporter of Patel’s leadership at the FBI.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.