Luigi Mangione appears with his lawyers Marc Agnifilo (L) and Karen Friedman Agnifilo in court for a hearing on his state murder charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 16, 2025 in New York City.
Curtis Means | Getty Images
Lawyers for Luigi Mangione are accusing the Trump administration of violating their client’s right to a fair trial in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
In a pointed letter filed in federal court, Mangione’s lawyers referred to several comments administration officials made about Mangione in the days after Kirk’s killing, including by the president.
“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,” the letter reads. “A recent, tragic, high-profile murder has only increased this prejudicial rhetoric.”
Kirk, a popular conservative activist and podcaster, was assassinated while speaking at an event on a college campus in Utah on Sept. 10. Commenters have compared the killing to other recent acts of political violence, including the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel in December 2024.
Mangione, 26, is charged with state and federal crimes in connection with Thompson’s death. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. State prosecutors have presented diary entries they say belong to Mangione that contain references to killing a health insurance CEO to make a statement about the broader health care industry.
Mangione’s lawyers pointed to an interview President Donald Trump gave with Fox News on Sept. 18, a little over a week after Kirk was killed, in which the president said that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me. … He shot him right in the middle of the back – instantly dead. … This is a sickness. This really has to be studied and investigated.”
The letter noted that an X account affiliated with the White House, Rapid Response 47, posted a video with the president’s comment on Mangione to its millions of followers a day later.
It adds that Chad Gilmartin, the deputy director of the Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, reposted the video and wrote that Trump “is absolutely right.”
Mangione’s lawyers also pointed to comments made by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Sept. 22, when she referred to Mangione as a “left wing assassin [who] shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson right in the back in New York City.”
The attorneys lastly pointed to a comment White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller made in an interview with Fox News on Sept. 23. Miller, referring to Mangione, said that “of course the health care CEO was brutally gunned down by another self-described so-called anti-fascist that was then celebrated by other self-described anti-fascists, so of course, really communist revolutionaries.”
Mangione’s lawyers wrote: “The attempts to connect Mr. Mangione with these incidents and paint him as a ‘left wing’ violent extremist are false, prejudicial, and part of a greater political narrative that has no place in any criminal case, especially one where the death penalty is at stake.”
In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in Mangione’s federal case.
Mangione’s lawyers also argued that the administration was violating an April court order by making such comments publicly about the case.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson referred NBC News to the Justice Department, which did not immediately return a request for comment.
A New York state judge dismissed state terrorism charges against Mangione last week, arguing that his alleged crime does not fit “within the definition of terrorism.”
Days later, Mangione’s attorneys filed a 114-page motion in his federal case, arguing that federal prosecutors should be precluded from treating this as a death penalty case and that the indictment against him should be dismissed.
