A new report from a leading threat-research institute links anti-Christian extremism and what analysts call an “assassination culture” to the alleged bomb plot against Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk, as threats against conservative figures continue to climb to historic levels.
The Network Contagion Research Institute released findings Tuesday analyzing the threat environment that produced Jacob Wenske, 26, a Texas man charged by Bexar County in late May with a third-degree felony count of making a terroristic threat. Wenske allegedly planned to bomb a TPUSA event in San Antonio where Kirk was the keynote speaker.
In an email sent directly to the organization before his arrest, Wenske said he was targeting Kirk, other speakers, and people he called “Christian nationalists,” according to an arrest warrant. He also posted multiple threats on social media, the warrant states.
Travis Hawley, a cyber threat and open-source intelligence analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute, told Fox News Digital that foreign malign influence is helping drive the wave of radicalization.
“What we’re seeing is a massive influx of foreign malign influence that is truly shaping the Western world right now, particularly through social media,” Hawley said. “What you could call our digital diet is really shaping how people see ourselves, our values, our country, and even our history.”
Hawley said adversarial nations and organizations are deliberately accelerating civil unrest by funding anti-Western ideological networks online.
“The motivation of our adversaries to push Marxist ideology, Islamist ideology, anything that is anti-Western, anti-democratic, anti-capitalist is to defeat us from within,” he said.
The NCRI report focuses on what it calls “permission structure”: the social and cultural signals that lead individuals to view murder or political violence as justified.
The research institute’s own 2025 survey found that 1,264 U.S. adults, or 38 percent of those polled, considered it “somewhat justified” to murder President Donald Trump. Among respondents who identified as left of center, that figure rose to approximately 55 percent.
Wenske’s arrest followed a 58 percent increase in threats against members of Congress from 2024 to 2025, according to U.S. Capitol Police Threat Assessment Section data. Overall threats against public officials have nearly doubled since 2020.
Erika Kirk is the widow of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, who was shot and killed nine months ago at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. FBI Director Kash Patel said Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin, confessed the killing in a chatroom on Discord. Members of Congress have since called for scrutiny of Discord’s role in radicalizing users.
The NCRI report also references the Luigi Mangione case, in which the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson drew a legal defense fund exceeding $1.5 million, with supporters regularly appearing at his courthouse hearings to show solidarity.
