Luigi Mangione seems along with his attorneys Marc Agnifilo (L) and Karen Friedman Agnifilo in courtroom for a listening to on his state homicide prices within the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom on September 16, 2025 in New York Metropolis.
Curtis Means | Getty Photos
Attorneys for Luigi Mangione are accusing the Trump administration of violating their consumer’s proper to a good trial within the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
In a pointed letter filed in federal courtroom, Mangione’s attorneys referred to a number of feedback administration officers made about Mangione within the days after Kirk’s killing, together with by the president.
“The Authorities has indelibly prejudiced Mr. Mangione by baselessly linking him to unrelated violent occasions, and left-wing extremist teams, regardless of there being no connection or affiliation,” the letter reads. “A latest, tragic, high-profile homicide has solely elevated this prejudicial rhetoric.”
Kirk, a well-liked conservative activist and podcaster, was assassinated whereas talking at an occasion on a university campus in Utah on Sept. 10. Commenters have in contrast the killing to different latest acts of political violence, together with the deadly capturing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outdoors a Manhattan resort in December 2024.
Mangione, 26, is charged with state and federal crimes in reference to Thompson’s loss of life. He has pleaded not responsible to the entire prices. State prosecutors have offered diary entries they are saying belong to Mangione that include references to killing a medical health insurance CEO to make an announcement in regards to the broader well being care business.
Mangione’s attorneys pointed to an interview President Donald Trump gave with Fox Information on Sept. 18, slightly over every week after Kirk was killed, during which the president stated that Mangione “shot somebody within the again as clear as you are taking a look at me. … He shot him proper in the midst of the again – immediately useless. … It is a illness. This actually must be studied and investigated.”
The letter famous that an X account affiliated with the White Home, Speedy Response 47, posted a video with the president’s touch upon Mangione to its hundreds of thousands of followers a day later.
It provides that Chad Gilmartin, the deputy director of the Division of Justice Workplace of Public Affairs, reposted the video and wrote that Trump “is totally proper.”
Mangione’s attorneys additionally pointed to feedback made by White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Sept. 22, when she referred to Mangione as a “left wing murderer [who] shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson proper within the again in New York Metropolis.”
The attorneys lastly pointed to a remark White Home deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller made in an interview with Fox Information on Sept. 23. Miller, referring to Mangione, stated that “after all the well being care CEO was brutally gunned down by one other self-described so-called anti-fascist that was then celebrated by different self-described anti-fascists, so after all, actually communist revolutionaries.”
Mangione’s attorneys wrote: “The makes an attempt to attach Mr. Mangione with these incidents and paint him as a ‘left wing’ violent extremist are false, prejudicial, and a part of a better political narrative that has no place in any felony case, particularly one the place the loss of life penalty is at stake.”
In April, Legal professional Common Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to hunt the loss of life penalty in Mangione’s federal case.
Mangione’s attorneys additionally argued that the administration was violating an April courtroom order by making such feedback publicly in regards to the case.
White Home Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson referred NBC Information to the Justice Division, which didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
A New York state choose dismissed state terrorism prices towards Mangione final week, arguing that his alleged crime doesn’t match “throughout the definition of terrorism.”
Days later, Mangione’s attorneys filed a 114-page movement in his federal case, arguing that federal prosecutors ought to be precluded from treating this as a loss of life penalty case and that the indictment towards him ought to be dismissed.
