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Luigi Mangione’s defense lawyers are crying foul to a judge about the Trump administration and Department of Justice over references to the accused assassin as left-wing and “anti-fascist” — accusing top government officials of violating his Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights to a fair trial by continuing to make statements about the case outside of the courtroom.
They took issue with a range of incidents, including a Fox News interview in which President Donald Trump alleged that “He shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me.”
In another, Mangione’s lawyers wrote that “the White House Press Secretary referred to Mr. Mangione as a ‘left-wing assassin,'” and that a different White House official called their client a “self-described so-called anti-fascist.”
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Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Supreme Court for a hearing in the murder case filed against him in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Sept. 16, 2025. (Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool)
“The Government has indelibly prejudiced Mr. Mangione by baselessly linking him to unrelated violent events and left-wing extremist groups, despite there being no connection or affiliation,” wrote Karen Friedman Agnifilo, one of Mangione’s top-tier defense lawyers. “A recent, tragic, high-profile murder has only increased this prejudicial rhetoric.”
She was likely referencing the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. The suspect in that attack, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is accused of engraving his bullet casings with memes and Antifa-inspired language.
Read the letter to the judge:
Then Wednesday morning, another gunman opened fire at the Dallas field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, killing two people and injuring a third before fatally shooting himself.
Authorities recovered bullets at the Dallas scene with the phrase “Anti-ICE” written on an unspent round.
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FBI Director Kash Patel said investigators recovered these rounds from the scene in Dallas where a gunman opened fire on the local ICE field office. (FBI)
Mangione allegedly wrote the words “deny,” “delay” and “depose” on spent and unspent casings police recovered while investigating his case in what appears to be a reference to the title of a book that is critical of the U.S. health insurance industry.
The defense is accusing the DOJ of violating the rules of criminal court that balance the First Amendment with the right to a fair trial.
After receiving the defense letter, Judge Margaret Garnett gave the DOJ until Oct. 3 to respond with a sworn declaration “from a person of suitable authority” in the Southern District of New York to explain the incidents, which appear to have violated a prior court order from April in which the judge told prosecutors to abide by Local Criminal Rule 23.1 (a), which governs the balance between freedom of speech and a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
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Slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson pictured in a corporate portrait. (UnitedHealth Group via AP)
The defense also claimed that the government, due to its possession of Mangione’s journals, is aware that his writings don’t mention Antifa ties.
“The Government very well knows this statement to be false as they are in possession of his alleged extensive journal writings where the writer never once mentions being anti- (or pro) fascist,” the defense wrote.
Mangione allegedly wrote critically about the health insurance industry and wanting to “whack” a CEO, authorities have said. He is also accused of wanting “to incite national debates.”
“The DOJ may have fanned the flames by portraying Luigi Mangione as a left-wing assassin,” said Randolph Rice, an attorney and legal analyst based in the 27-year-old former Ivy Leaguer’s home state of Maryland. “His lawyers have pushed back hard, noting there’s nothing in his past or his writings to support that narrative.”
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Booking photos for Tyler Robinson, 22, the suspect in the Utah assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Utah Gov. Spencer Cox)
The legal dogma is that prosecutors usually avoid extrajudicial statements so that they don’t risk tainting the potential jury pool, Rice told Fox News Digital. But Mangione’s case may have an extra level of danger if it continues to inspire shooters.
“The danger is that extremists may now view him as an inspiration, taking cues from his actions, like writing messages on bullets, to fuel their own twisted beliefs and commit violence for political purposes,” Rice said.
The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, appears to have inspired, at least partially, the subsequent attacks in Orem, Utah, and Dallas, Texas.
Thompson, like Kirk, was a married father of two.
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Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an event in Utah on Sept. 10. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via Reuters)
“Writing messages on bullets is significant because it reveals the shooter’s intent even before a single round is fired,” Rice said. “For prosecutors, that kind of evidence is gold, it can demonstrate motive, premeditation and in some cases support additional charges, including hate crimes if the messaging targets a specific group.”
While the messages themselves may be evidence that prosecutors can use against shooters in court, Rice warned that copycats may increasingly be using murder to justify their political views.
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“What we’re seeing in Dallas and in other recent cases is a disturbing trend, radicalized individuals who aren’t just committing violence, but trying to make a political or ideological statement through the very ammunition they use,” Rice told Fox News Digital. “That’s not random, it’s deliberate.”
Just about two weeks before Kirk’s murder in Utah, a gunman who identified as transgender opened fire on schoolchildren at a Catholic church in Minneapolis. That attacker wrote messages on his guns and magazines in an apparent reference to two other mass shooters who opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.