Fact-check: Minnesota assassination suspect Vance Luther Boelter is not a leftist

1 hour ago 1

The assassination of a prominent Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in June was not carried out by a leftist, as some conservatives contend, but allegedly by a pastor who spent his adult life preaching about Christ.

In the wake of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, some on social media point to the June 14 killing of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband as evidence of a conservative killing and maiming Democrats.

‘Those two days don’t represent how I have been living the last 40 Years as a Christian.’

The response from some conservatives on X has been to brand accused Minnesota assassin Vance Luther Boelter a Democrat or a leftist lunatic or to suggest he was not a Trump supporter.

The trouble with those arguments is that they are opposed by most of the evidence in the killings of Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the grievous wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

It has become commonplace to see blame-trading in high-profile crimes such as assassinations and assassination attempts. The left often engages in deliberate deception. Social media is filled with the lie that Kirk assassination suspect Tyler Robinson is a Republican, when ample evidence has emerged alleging that he is an indoctrinated leftist and a homosexual who was living with a man pretending to be a woman.

FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday said Robinson "claimed that he had an opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and he was going to do it because of his hatred for what Charlie stood for."

Boelter faces 14 criminal counts

Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minn., has been indicted in state and federal courts on 14 criminal counts that include stalking, murder, attempted murder, use of firearms in furtherance of a felony, and felony cruelty to an animal for the shooting of the Hortmans’ dog, Gilbert.

Anecdotal evidence that emerged June 14 during the largest police manhunt in Minnesota history suggested that Boelter had ties to Democrats and the prominent Democrat “No Kings” protest movement.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton appointed Vance Boelter to the Governor’s Workforce Development Council in 2016. Current Gov. Tim Walz appointed Boelter to a similar board in 2019.Minnesota Secretary of State

But an examination of Boelter’s life found clear evidence that Boelter has lived by conservative values and that he allegedly targeted four lawmakers in the predawn hours of June 14 at least in part because they are Democrats.

What muddies the picture in the Minnesota case is that Boelter is an enigma. He has not been involved in state or local politics as a volunteer or donor. There is some evidence that he has voted in Republican elections and is a supporter of President Donald J. Trump.

Inconsistent reasoning

His alleged reasoning for the shooting rampage has been inconsistent, twisted, and bizarre. According to a handwritten letter he allegedly left in a getaway vehicle found in Belle Plaine, Minn., the suspect said Democrat Gov. Walz ordered him to kill Minnesota’s two Democrat United States senators so that Walz could run unencumbered for a seat in Congress.

While the FBI says Boelter kept a handwritten “hit list” of more than 60 Democrat officials and organizations, he apparently did not target U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar or Tina Smith on June 14. The targets on that day were the top state legislative Democrat and three other Democrat state lawmakers.

Boelter’s story has evolved since June 14. He first told Alpha News that the June 14 violence was meant to involve citizen’s arrests of Minnesota lawmakers for allegedly covering up 400 sudden deaths caused by COVID-19 shots. He claimed that neither his opposition to abortion nor his support for President Trump was his motivation.

Boelter told Blaze News in interviews from his jail cell in Elk River, Minn., that he never intended to shoot anyone. His actions on June 14 somehow went “horribly wrong.” It was the capstone of a two-year undercover investigation of vaccine deaths, he said, although he has yet to produce any evidence from this alleged investigation.

Boelter told Blaze News that while he is not yet able to share his full reasoning for the June 14 attacks and his time on the lam June 15, the violence of that day stood in stark contrast to the life he lived since childhood in Sleepy Eye, Minn.

“Those two days don’t represent how I have been living the last 40 Years as a Christian,” Boelter said in a text to Blaze News on Aug. 7.

“No Kings” fliers were found in a decommissioned police SUV owned by Vance and Jenny Boelter after the June 14 killings of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman.Minnesota State Patrol/X

Alleged evidence of Boelter being a liberal boils down to three facts. In the decommissioned police vehicle he allegedly used to visit the homes of lawmakers on June 14, police indicated he had a pile of fliers that read “No Kings,” a reference to nationwide anti-Trump rallies held the same day as the murders.

The “No Kings” fliers were disclosed by the Minnesota State Patrol, which released an image of the signs on X June 14. “The photo is of flyers inside the vehicle of the suspect in today’s shootings,” the State Patrol wrote. Minnesota State Patrol Col. Christina Bogojevic advised Minnesotans to stay away from the “No Kings” protests scheduled for that day as a result.

There was no reference to the “No Kings” fliers in any of Boelter’s federal charging documents or the FBI search warrant affidavit. The photo released by the Minnesota State Patrol was not included in any of the other Boelter court documents.

The widely circulated photo of the fliers on June 14 led many, including Charlie Kirk, to initially conclude that Boelter was from the political left.

Boelter was appointed by two successive Democrat Minnesota governors — Mark Dayton and Walz — to workforce development boards on which Boelter served from 2016 until 2023. These were volunteer positions. The boards issued advisory reports on issues affecting the Minnesota workforce.

Boelter served on a similar body in Dakota and Scott Counties, the Dakota-Scott Workforce Development Board. He began a term as board chairman in October 2021. The board “oversees employment programs within Dakota and Scott counties, including at CareerForce Centers in Burnsville, West St. Paul, and Shakopee,” according to a Dakota County news release. “The board’s 27 members represent the public and private sectors.”

Vance Luther Boelter is charged with killing former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) and shooting state Sen. John Hoffman (DFL-Champlin).Minnesota Legislature

Most of Boelter’s career was spent at companies that process and sell food items, including Gold ’n Plump chicken, Johnsonville Sausage, Gerber Products, Lettieri’s/Greencore, 7-Eleven, and Marathon Oil.

Boelter is by all accounts a devout Christian. Raised in a Lutheran family of six children in southern Minnesota, Boelter described a conversion experience he had while working a summer job at the Del Monte vegetable packing plant in Sleepy Eye, Minn.

He earned a practical theology certificate at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, a charismatic interdenominational Bible college. Boelter was involved in campus Christian groups while studying at St. Cloud State University. He served as a campus pastor in the mid-1990s at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minn.

After getting married in October 1997, Boelter and his wife formed a Christian-based nonprofit organization, Revoformation Ministries Inc. The organization appeared to be related to the New Apostolic Reformation, an evangelical Christian movement.

The New Apostolic Reformation includes the belief that “an age of revival began around 1900, during which essentials that the Church lost or suppressed long ago were gradually ‘revived’ or ‘restored,’” according to Father Thomas Buffer, a priest writing in the Catholic Times.

Boelter went on missionary trips to the Democratic Republic of the Congo sponsored by the Minnesota-based Global Impact Center. During those trips he gave several sermons that chastised Christian churches in America for their alleged lack of unity and failure to uphold traditional teachings on marriage and sexual morality.

An outgrowth of those mission trips was the establishment of the Red Lion Group, a company that sought to increase locally grown food for distribution throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Boelter and his wife, Jenny, were partners in Red Lion Group with the Rev. Mcnay Nkashama and his wife, Nathalie, according to documents obtained by Blaze News. The Nkashamas are both native to the DRC and now live in Minnesota.

Evidence of Boelter’s political leanings is more difficult to find than evidence of his his business dealings. His childhood friend, David Carlson, told reporters that Boelter is no liberal and has supported President Trump. Carlson said Boelter did not have an interest in state or local politics.

There are no records in the Federal Election Commission database or Minnesota Campaign Finance Board records that show Boelter ever donated to a political candidate, political party, or political action committee.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Read Entire Article