(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson used the pseudonym “Donald Trump” while playing on the gaming platform Steam, according to a Thursday report from Bloomberg.
The factoid about Robinson’s gamer name came in a report that also revealed that the Secret Service is investigating the assassin, even though Kirk wasn’t under the agency’s protection.
“Agents are working with the FBI to study Robinson’s behavior and online activity, including his use of Trump’s name on Steam, as part of a profile they are building,” Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources.
“The aim is to understand how suspects form grievances, how they select targets and whether their actions signal broader risks to current or former officeholders.”
According to Bloomberg, Robinson’s Steam account is 11 years old.
“It lists an account that appears to belong to his partner as a friend. Some comments on the account were disabled shortly after Bloomberg reached out to Valve [the company that runs Steam] for comment,” Bloomberg added.
The government has falsely linked assassin’s to Steam in the past. Indeed, days after the July 13 assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Congress was provided information from the FBI that Thomas Crooks “previewed” his attack on Steam.
However, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on weeks later that the Steam account in question did not, in fact, belong to Crooks. Wray admitted that his own agents were duped by a fake account—meaning that the FBI briefed Congress with fake evidence in the crucial hours following an assassination attempt against the presidential frontrunner.
“That’s a situation where in our effort to give real-time information, since we’ve provided that information, we’ve since learned that the July 13 ‘premier’ profile page on the gaming platform—it turns out, it was not the shooter. It was some other individual, who as a sick joke, after the shooting created the profile page pretending to be the shooter,” Wray said in response to questions from Rep. Benjamin Cline, R-Va.
“That person has since admitted to it,” Wray said, referring to the hoaxer. “Among the other challenges we as investigators have, we have people creating accounts pretending to be somebody when it’s not the actual person.”
Wray did say that Crooks had multiple accounts on gaming platforms.
“We do believe he was a gamer and that he did have different types of gaming accounts,” Wray said.
The FBI has yet to release any information on Crooks’s gaming account.
The House Oversight committee has subpoenaed the heads of Steam, Discord, Twitch and Reddit to testify in a hearing about the radicalization of online forum users, including instances of open incitement to commit politically motivated acts.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
