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ken klippenstein
Luigi Mangione Charged With Murder as 'An Act of Terrorism' for Killing of Insurance CEO
The "maximum penalty possible for murder in first degree and murder in the second degree as an act of terrorism is life without parole," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Dec 17, 2024
Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect arrested last week in connection to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was indicted on charges including murder in the first degree in furtherance of terrorism and murder in the second degree as an act of terrorism, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.
Thompson was gunned down outside of a Midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4, prompting a dayslong manhunt to find the shooter. The case also triggered a wave of dark humor and vitriol directed at the for-profit healthcare industry.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office previously filed paperwork charging Mangione, an Ivy League graduate and Maryland native, with murder, but the terror allegation is new, according to The Associated Press.
A day after Luigi Mangione was arrested and first charged, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein published what he said was Mangione's manifesto, which read in part: "I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming."
In addition, Mangione has been charged with a second count of murder in the second degree, "pertaining to the fact that the killing was intentional," said District Attorney Alvin Bragg during a press conference on Tuesday.
All told, Mangione is facing an 11-count indictment, which also include two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, and four counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. He has also been charged with Pennsylvania gun and forgery offenses and is currently being held in a Pennsylvania jail.
Bragg called Thompson's killing "brazen, targeted, and premeditated shooting" and said the terrorism charges were warranted because the slaying was "intended to evoke terror."
Bragg noted that the "maximum penalty possible for murder in first degree and murder in the second degree as an act of terrorism is life without parole. The maximum penalty for murder in second degree is 25 years to life."
Mangione recently hired Manhattan attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo to represent him.
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'It Had to Be Done': Luigi Mangione Manifesto Revealed
"A reminder: the U.S. has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy," the 26-year-old accused of assassinating a health insurance CEO reportedly wrote.
Dec 10, 2024
This is a breaking story… Please check back for possible updates...
A day after Luigi Mangione was arrested and charged as the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on Tuesday published what he said was the 26-year-old's highly reported on manifesto.
The existence of the handwritten document found on Mangione when he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Monday was confirmed by the New York Police Department, and major media outlets have quoted from it, but none had released it in full.
"My queries to The New York Times, CNN, and ABC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered," Klippenstein said on his Substack.
According to Klippenstein—who previously published dossiers on Vice President-elect JD Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the nominee for U.S. secretary of state—Mangione's manifesto reads:
To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.
Common Dreams has not independently verified its authenticity.
Klippenstein
said on social media that the manifesto he published is "the real one, not the fake one circulating online."
NBC News deputy technology editor Ben Goggin noted that language shared by Klippenstein "matches what NBC has reported here as real."
Earlier on Tuesday, Klippenstein published leaked talking points that UnitedHealthcare reportedly circulated to its employees as the insurance company faces widespread public criticism.
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'Let's See If I Get Banned Again!' Journalist Releases Team Trump Rubio Dossier
Trump's reported pick for secretary of state previously suggested the president-elect "could not be trusted with America's nuclear codes" and criticized him for "using language in seeming praise of Putin."
Nov 12, 2024
With U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly set to pick Sen. Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, journalist Ken Klippenstein on Tuesday published a 551-page dossier that the campaign previously compiled on the Florida Republican.
Like the dossier on Vice President-elect JD Vance that Klippenstein released on KLIPNEWS in September, the Rubio file "was offered to major media outlets this summer," the independent journalist noted. "All refused to publish it, not over questions about its authenticity, but because the media thinks it is an arm of the national security state, complying with U.S. government's warnings that because the document came from Iran, the American people shouldn't see it."
"Let's see if I get banned again!" Klippenstein said Tuesday on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter and now owned by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk. Klippenstein was "permanently" suspended over the Vance dossier, but after The New York Timesreported last month that the Trump campaign coordinated with X to suppress the document, Musk had Klippenstein reinstated in the name of "free speech principles," according to correspondence obtained by the journalist.
The latest dossier, Klippenstein noted, "is authentic and there are no signs it was altered, something spokespersons for both the Trump campaign and Rubio did not deny when I contacted them for comment and provided them with copies of the dossier."
The journalist highlighted sections of the document detailing Rubio's past remarks about Trump related to Russian collusion in 2016, the 2020 election, Trump's control over nuclear weapons, the September 11 terrorist attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, free trade, China, immigration, Iran, the Iraq war, and the U.S. withdrawal from Syria.
For example, the dossier notes that "in 2016, Rubio contended that Trump was dangerous and could not be trusted with America's nuclear codes," and "in 2022, Rubio said it was 'unfortunate' Trump was using language in seeming praise of Putin."
In addition to detailing Rubio's critiques of Trump and "undermining of the 'America First' agenda," the document—last updated April 1, 2024—lays out some of his "questionable" policy positions as well as "ethics issues" and "controversial associations."
So far, Trump's other reported or confirmed foreign policy picks are: Congressman Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) for national security adviser, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for ambassador to the United Nations, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel, Steven C. Witkoff for special envoy to the Middle East, and Brian Hook to lead the U.S. State Department transition team.
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