Candace Owens is an American commentator whose claims about the killing of Charlie Kirk — that the French government was involved, and that she had received a credible death threat from it — John Kiriakou has addressed publicly and declined to accept.
On the Kirk claims
Kiriakou distinguishes between her sincerity and her conclusion. “I believe that Candace Owens believes that this is an international conspiracy. I do not think it”s an international conspiracy. I would be surprised if the French government even knew who Charlie Kirk was. I highly, highly doubt that the French government wanted Charlie Kirk dead or had any reason to make Charlie Kirk dead. It just doesn”t make any sense.”[1]
On the threat itself he splits the question in two: he believes she received one, and disbelieves its attribution. “Do I believe she got death threats? Yeah. And I believe that she believes the threats came from the French government. They came probably from some guy who was drinking too much and may or may not have had a French accent.” His own experience of receiving threats is what he offers in support.[2]
He adds a second argument, drawn from what he was told about the French service while at the CIA: it does not warn. “They don”t make threats.”[3]
The precedent he cites
His reason for scepticism is a prior claim of the same shape. “She also said she had irrefutable proof that the Italian government stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. I remember that because I was on the conference call when she said it — and that as soon as this irrefutable proof was released to the public, it would bring down the Italian government and Donald Trump would be inaugurated again on January the 20th, 2021. Of course that was ridiculous, and none of it ever happened.”[4]
His overall estimate is deliberately mixed: “Candace Owens has a great following. She has millions of people that listen to her. She”s very, very bright, but she comes up with a lot of crazy stuff. She claims to have irrefutable proof and then she never puts up.”[5]
Named in the realignment
In October 2025 Kiriakou placed Owens within a group he treats as evidence of a structural shift on the American right over Israel, rather than a series of unrelated defections — the others named being Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Steve Bannon, whose position he summarized as telling Israel that if it wanted to expand the war in the Middle East it would be going without American help.[6]
The Macron suit
In July 2025 Kiriakou discussed the defamation action Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron brought against Owens over her three-year campaign — including a documentary — asserting that Brigitte Macron was born male, on the grounds that no childhood history, documents or photographs of her existed. Kiriakou’s judgement of the claim was flat: “none of that’s true.”[7][8]
What he found notable was the sequence rather than the substance. The Macrons had approached Owens through attorneys a year earlier, told her the claim was untrue and warned her they would sue; nobody had known this until days before the filing. She doubled down instead, saying in part that her conversion to Catholicism obliged her to expose the person she described as masquerading as the first lady of France.[9][10]