Featured Image Credit: Fox News
Topics: Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk, Politics, US News
Rhianna Benson
In the midst of online conspiracies that allege she had something to do with her husband's political assassination, Erika Kirk has issued an emotional plea.
The widow, whose right-wing activist husband Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while hosting a debate in Utah back in September, appeared on Fox News' Outnumbered this week, where she addressed these theories directly.
In the wake of 31-year-old Kirk's death - which was announced at the time by his close political ally Donald Trump - Erika and her team at the conservative campaign group Turning Point USA were accused by some onlookers of having had something to do with the assassination.
Among those to have made such claims is Candace Owens, a former friend of Kirk who told her followers of Erika's recent TV appearances: "None of this is passing the vibe check.
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"You are not changing my mind about the fact that something weird happened that day and that TPUSA is acting funny."
In response to Owens' allegations - and similar claims that are plaguing the internet - Erika this week insisted they've taken 'nothing' from her.
"My silence does not mean that I am complacent," she told broadcaster Harris Faulkner. "My silence does not mean that somehow Turning Point USA and all of the hand-picked staff that loved my husband and my husband loved them is somehow in on it.
"We are busy building."
Erika went on to add: "And you know what I thought? I thought these people are human. We are all grieving in our own way, and they are trying to find the answer to something that happened that was so evil.
"They are trying so hard, and I get that, we're doing the same. Any time we hear a lead or anytime we hear anything, we send it to the authorities.
"Please dig into this. No rock will be unturned. I want justice for my husband, for myself, for my family more than anyone else out there."
Of the haters, she added: "Come after me. Call me names. I don't care. Call me what you want. Go down that rabbit hole. Whatever.
"But when you go after my family, my Turning Point USA family, my ‘Charlie Kirk Show’ family. When you go out for the people that I love, and you're making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that I love, because somehow they're in on this? No."
Erika continued: "They watched my husband get murdered. I have no idea how I would have reacted if I was there that day.
"And thank the good Lord that I did not have to see that happen. But my team, they are rocked the core. So why every single day did they have to be dragged through the mud, analysed, hyper-analysed."
During the same interview, Erika also asked even the most hard-faced of her late husband's critics for 'one thing' - a safe space where she and her children can mourn him.
"Can I have one thing? Can my children have one thing?" she asked viewers. "We will be building the most beautiful memorial for my husband at Turning Point USA - and it will be for the world to see, and it will be spectacular.
"But can I have one thing? Can my babies have one thing where we hold it sacred, where my husband is laid to rest, where I don't have to be worried about some secular revolutionary coming and destroying my husband's grave while my daughter is sitting there praying? One thing."
Erika went on to add: "This is my husband. Yes, he was Charlie Kirk to the world. And I know so many people love my husband, and I am grateful for that.
"But this is my husband, and I want to be able to have one thing left that is sacred to our family, to my in-laws, to my babies, and to my parents.
"One thing."