Candace Owens and the FBI clashed online after the conservative commentator accused the agency of blocking her attempts to get information into the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Owens kicked off the drama Monday by taking to X and alleging that the FBI said “the burden of request [was] too great” after she requested FBI Director Kash Patel’s travel itinerary from the days before Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in September 2025.
“Via FOIA, we formally requested Kash Patel’s travel itinerary for the 3 days leading up to Charlie Kirk’s assassination and we just heard back and were told the burden of the request is too great,” Owens, who continues to dig into conspiracy theories about the death of her friend, bemoaned on X. “How is this even remotely legal?”
In response to Owens’ callout, the FBI took to its Rapid Response X account and shared the written response they sent to the podcaster, writing, “Dear @RealCandaceO Please show us on the document sent to you ACKNOWLEDGING your FOIA request where we said: ‘The burden of the request is too great.’”
The statement continued: “Your ‘show’ just like the fake news media will be called out when you LIE! We hope this helps.”
The FBI then offered up an additional statement following Owens’ public complaint after the author said she posted their denial in full on her YouTube account: “When you tell your audience you were ‘denied’ that would be a lie for clickbait.”
The commentator then issued a number of scathing responses to the FBI’s dig, including one jab alleging the agency’s X account was run by an “intern.”
“To the intern running this X account— you’ll note that we did not put your response in quotation marks. That’s called, ‘paraphrasing,’” she wrote in a follow-up X post. “When you wrote back to us suggesting that we ‘reduce the scope of [our] request’ while referring to our request for a mere 3 day itinerary as ‘substantive’ we appropriately paraphrased on for fellow X users that our request was too burdensome.”
She continued: “We then published your full response as well as our full request onto our show for public to read themselves. Glad to see you are actually capable of respond ‘rapidly’ to smear people that won’t let go of Charlie Kirk’s death. Do you mind utilizing a similar speed to get Tyler Robinson’s defense team the documents they’ve been requesting and which have mysteriously been in your possession since September? Thanks in advance, Chief.”
Owens didn’t hold back with her criticisms, as she followed up her post with another dig. This time, she called out the entire Department of Justice, writing, “Clown world. LMAO.” Owens also accused the FBI of wasting tax dollars “by behaving like a boomer who doesn’t understand that X is meant to be pithy?”
She added: “Is ‘clickbait’ a legitimate Department of Justice concern? Who is running this account? Who is running this account? Can we FOIA that?”
Additionally, Owens reposted Buckley Carlson’s commentary on the situation, in which he defended the controversial commentator from Laura Loomer, who claimed she told “excessive lies.”
“Larry: you and the FBI are too dumb/dishonest to recognize the euphemism for the ‘burden is too great,’ clearly spelled out in their ‘unusual circumstances’ dodge?” Tucker Carlson’s brother wrote on X. “Alarming. But not as alarming as their shutdown of Charlie & Trump’s Butler investigation. Hmm. What IS the common denominator here? And, how and why do they have the time to tweak Candace, when they sat on voluminous Epstein evidence for 20 years? Those are the questions YOU would be asking. If you were smart. Or, honest.”
TheWrap has reached out to the FBI for further comment.
