A federal judge on Wednesday demanded that the Trump Justice Department explain why senior officials made comments that called Luigi Mangione guilty of killing a health insurance executive in Manhattan, despite her order to keep quiet.
The comments began last week after President Trump said on Fox News that Mr. Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me,” and were amplified by Justice Department and White House officials on social media and elsewhere.
On Monday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, referred to Mr. Mangione at a news conference as a “left-wing assassin.” And on Tuesday night, Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News that the executive was “brutally gunned down” by a so-called antifascist and was celebrated by “communist revolutionaries.”
The comments, made less than two weeks after the Sept. 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist, violated an order in April by the judge in Mr. Mangione’s case that explicitly warned Justice Department officials to refrain from speaking publicly about the case in order to ensure a fair trial.
Mr. Mangione is accused of shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of United Healthcare, minutes before an investors meeting at a Midtown hotel on Dec. 4. He was captured in possession of a manifesto decrying America’s system of for-profit health care and a “parasitic” insurance industry.
This month, a state judge in New York dismissed terrorism charges against Mr. Mangione, which included a count that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life, though he still faces a murder charge, to which he has pleaded not guilty. In the parallel federal case, he has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, which could bring the death penalty.
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The post Judge Rebukes Trump Officials for Saying Mangione Is a Killer appeared first on New York Times.
