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manhattan district attorney
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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Manhattan DA Accuses House GOP of 'Unlawful Incursion' Into Trump Probe
"The district attorney is obliged by the federal and state constitutions to protect the independence of state law enforcement functions from federal interference," wrote the district attorney's general counsel.
Mar 23, 2023
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Thursday accused House Republicans of an "unlawful incursion" into New York authorities' investigation of former President Donald Trump, who is expected to face criminal charges over a 2016 pre-election hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
In a letter to Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), and James Comer (R-Tenn.)—respectively the chairs of the House Judiciary, Administration, and Oversight Committees—the Manhattan DA's general counsel Leslie Dubeck wrote that the lawmakers' request earlier this week for confidential information pertaining to the Trump probe amounted to "an unprecedented inquiry into a pending local prosecution."
Dubeck wrote that the GOP lawmakers' Monday letter demanding that Bragg turn over communications and other documents related to the investigation "only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene."
"Neither fact is a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry," Dubeck continued. "The district attorney is obliged by the federal and state constitutions to protect the independence of state law enforcement functions from federal interference."
The reply from Bragg's office came just before news broke that the Manhattan grand jury tasked with considering possible criminal charges against the former president is not expected to convene again until at least Monday of next week.
Trump set off a firestorm over the weekend by claiming on his social media platform that he would be arrested on Tuesday and urging his supporters to mobilize in response. The arrest did not take place as the former president and 2024 candidate predicted, but the post did lead to a flood of donations from his right-wing political supporters.
As Insiderreported, Trump "raised $1.5 million in the three days after he claimed on Truth Social that he'd be arrested."
"The resulting average of $500,000 a day," the outlet noted, "is almost double the daily average from the weeks before and after he announced his bid for the White House in November."
In addition to requesting documents and testimony from Bragg, Jordan on Wednesday wrote letters demanding communications and other materials from two former prosecutors who previously led the Trump hush-money investigation.
As The Washington Postsummarized on Thursday: "Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer," to stay quiet about an alleged affair.
"Trump reimbursed [Cohen] after becoming president, in installments that were designated legal fees," the Post added. "Bragg (D) has declined to give details of the investigation. But he is believed to be considering charges related to the payments that would include falsifying business records, possibly in commission of another, campaign-related crime. It is up to him to decide whether to ask the grand jury to vote on charging Trump with a crime."
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Manhattan DA: Trump's Intimidation Efforts Won't Be Tolerated
Alvin Bragg's comments came after Trump urged his supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back" ahead of his expected indictment.
Mar 19, 2023
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Saturday that former President Donald Trump's efforts to undermine his prosecutorial authority won't be tolerated.
In a memo to colleagues, Bragg wrote that "we do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York."
"Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment," Bragg continued.
"As with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate," he added.
"We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York."
Bragg's email didn't specifically name Trump, referring only to the "public comments surrounding an ongoing investigation by this office."
But it came just hours after the former president and leading 2024 GOP candidate claimed on his social media platform that he "will be arrested" on Tuesday and called on his supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back."
Trump is expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a criminal case involving hush money paid to women who alleged sexual encounters with the former president, but its timing remains uncertain.
In a follow-up post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: "It's time!!! We are a nation in steep decline... We just can't allow this anymore. They're killing our nation as we sit back and watch. We must save America! Protest, protest, protest!!!"
Trump's call to action echoed how, six weeks after losing the 2020 presidential election, he fired off a tweet encouraging his supporters to join a "big protest" in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. "Be there, will be wild!" he wrote. Hundreds of far-right extremists came and—after Trump told them to march from a rally near the White House to the Capitol—ransacked the halls of Congress in a bid to prevent lawmakers from certifying President Joe Biden's win. Several people died as a result of the insurrection, which was precipitated by Trump and his Republican allies' ceaseless lies about voter fraud.
Mother Jones' D.C. bureau chief David Corn noted that Trump has recently "excused or dismissed the violence of January 6."
"He is an authoritarian willing to (again) use violence for his own ends," Corn tweeted. "That is a threat to the nation."
Trump started priming his supporters for unrest more than a year ago. At a January 2022 rally in Texas, the ex-president promised to pardon January 6 rioters if he wins in 2024 and called for protests if prosecutors investigating his effort to subvert the 2020 election and other alleged crimes attempt to bring charges.
"If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had... in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt," Trump told a crowd of his supporters 14 months ago.
On Saturday, HuffPost's senior White House correspondent S.V. Dáte asked if high-ranking Republicans had anything to say about Trump's most recent threats.
"If a new round of political violence occurs, McCarthy should absolutely shoulder some of the blame."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other right-wing lawmakers quickly made it clear that they're siding with Trump over the rule of law.
Trump is expected to be charged in connection with payments his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to buy the silence of adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal—both of whom say they had affairs with Trump—at the height of the 2016 presidential election.
Cohen has testified that at Trump's direction, he organized payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and McDougal. According to Cohen, the Trump Organization reimbursed him $420,000 and categorized it as a legal fee. Trump's former fixer pleaded guilty to federal campaign violations in 2018.
Trump has so far evaded charges but that could soon change, as Manhattan prosecutors are expected to accuse Trump of overseeing the false recording of expenses in his company's internal records.
McCarthy on Saturday described Bragg's probe as "an outrageous abuse of power by a radical D.A. who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump."
"I'm directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions," he tweeted.
According toMSNBC's Hayes Brown:
By the time he fired off his own tweet, McCarthy had presumably seen Trump calling his supporters into the streets, echoing the incitement of violence against Congress two years ago. The speaker lived through that experience and witnessed firsthand the effect of Trump's words. And yet he opted to pretend otherwise in the weeks and months after the January 6 attack as he flew to Mar-a-Lago in supplication. In handing over unvetted security footage from the attack to a far-right propagandist last month, McCarthy is once again complicit in trying to whitewash the assault. If a new round of political violence occurs, McCarthy should absolutely shoulder some of the blame.
McCarthy was far from alone. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), for example, baselessly declared: "If they can come for Trump, they will come for you. This type of stuff only occurs in third world authoritarian countries."
The GOP's current framing of ongoing investigations into Trump as political "witch hunts" is not new. McCarthy and others reacted in a similar manner when the FBI in early August searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and removed boxes of documents as part of a federal probe into the ex-president's handling of classified materials.
In New York, meanwhile, law enforcement and security agencies at all levels are reportedly preparing for the possibility of a Trump indictment as early as this week.
If indicted, Trump would become the first U.S. president to face criminal charges in or out of office. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, has vowed to keep campaigning regardless of whether he's arrested.
The New York Times reported that if "Trump is arraigned, he will almost certainly be released without spending any time behind bars because the indictment is likely to contain only nonviolent felony charges."
However, the Manhattan D.A.'s hush money probe is just one of many pending cases against Trump. The twice-impeached former president is also facing a state-level criminal investigation in Georgia over his efforts to overturn that state's 2020 election results, as well as federal probes into his coup attempt and his handling of classified government documents.
As The Associated Pressobserved, it's not clear when the other investigations into Trump "will end or whether they might result in criminal charges."
"But they will continue regardless of what happens in New York," the outlet noted, "underscoring the ongoing gravity—and broad geographic scope—of the legal challenges confronting the former president."
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