A federal judge has put Department of Justice officials on notice, saying they may have broken court rules by echoing a recent public condemnation of Luigi Mangione by President Donald Trump.
Government agents are not supposed to share opinions about someone’s guilt or innocence before they stand trial, according to federal court rules. Mangione’s lawyers accused officials of violating his right to a fair trial in a motion filed late Tuesday.
Mangione’s attorneys cited several recent public statements by members of Trump’s administration they said “baselessly” connected him to “left-wing extremist groups” in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Their letter to the judge included screenshots of several social media posts by DOJ officials that shared a clip from a recent Fox News interview with the president saying Mangione “shot someone in the back” and that he “looked like a pure assassin.”
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said statements by high-ranking DOJ officials “appear to be in direct violation” of the rule. She ordered the government to explain how the public statements had been made and what steps will be taken to ensure the rules aren’t broken again. Future violations could result in sanctions, including financial penalties, contempt of court or relief related to the prosecution of the case, the judge said.
Mangione faces federal and state charges accusing him of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a hotel in Midtown last December. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. The Ivy League graduate has become a folk hero for people frustrated by the American health insurance industry and corporate greed — as well as those who find him attractive.
A DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In one post pictured in the court filing that defense attorneys said has since been deleted, Chad Gilmartin, who works in the DOJ office of public affairs, shared the clip of Trump, which came from an interview on Fox News about Kirk’s death. Gilmartin said in the post that the president “is absolutely right,” adding that Attorney General Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in his case.
Screenshot from a letter from Luigi Mangione's defense attorney to the federal judge overseeing the case.
Another screenshot in the defense letter shows an account connected to the chief of staff for the deputy attorney general sharing Gilmartin’s post.
The defense’s letter to the judge also cites several other statements from Trump administration officials, including a White House press release published Tuesday that includes Mangione’s alleged actions in a list of “Radical Left violence” and designates Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The release is called, “President Trump Isn’t Backing Down from Crushing Radical Left Violence.”
In her order on Wednesday, the judge did not weigh in on all the statements cited in the letter from Mangione’s lawyers — only the ones specifically tied to the DOJ. Garnett said she would assess the others when she considers a recent defense motion asking the court to dismiss Mangione’s federal case or block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
Over the weekend, Mangione’s defense attorneys filed a 118-page motion to dismiss his federal case. The lawyers described him as a “27-year-old Italian American dual citizen whose beautiful, promising life has been derailed” and who is “now fighting for his life against a government that seeks to execute him.” They also accused local, state and federal officials of repeatedly violating Mangione’s constitutional rights.
The motion cites other statements by public officials, including when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared on social media that she had directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for “Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson," which she said “was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Mangione’s lawyers argued the alleged constitutional violations undermine the federal indictment against him and should make his case ineligible for the death penalty. Last week, a Manhattan judge dropped two terrorism charges in Mangione’s state case. Justice Gregory Carro said Mangione can still face murder and weapons possession charges in his state case but that the actions he’s accused of don’t fall within New York’s terrorism statute. Mangione is due back in state court in early December.
