Pam Bondi Wants to Kill Luigi Mangione for Instagram ‘Content,' Defense Claims
'She ordered the death penalty and publicly released her order so she would have 'content' for her newly launched Instagram account,' Mangione's attorneys wrote.
The defense team is asking the court to block the government from seeking the death penalty. They argue that Bondi's announcement of the move was a 'political stunt' and that she failed to indicate Mangione's presumption of innocence.
They say that her death penalty media blitz on April 1 has 'prejudiced' the potential pool of grand jurors against their client, who has yet to be indicted on federal charges.
'The stakes could not be higher,' the lawyers said. 'The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt.'
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.
Mangione, 26, a former Ivy Leaguer, stands accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside of a Manhattan hotel last December. The software engineer was arrested in a high-profile manhunt after the brazen shooting.
In announcing that she would seek the death penalty against Mangione, Bondi issued a press release, appeared on Fox News, and posted on a new Instagram account.
'Luigi Mangione's murder of Brian Thompson—an innocent man and father of two young children—was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America," Bondi wrote in a statement. 'After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump's agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.'
The defense argues Bondi's words would be 'inappropriate and prejudicial in any context' but are especially improper for an attorney general issuing a direction to prosecutors, which they say could have been done out of the public eye.
'The Court simply cannot sit back and do nothing while a grand jury is convened which has been exposed to this sort of malicious, intentional prejudice,' the lawyers said. 'Not in any case much less a capital case.'
Federally, Mangione is charged with murder by firearm, two counts of stalking, and an additional gun charge. He is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, which also houses alleged sex offender and music mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs and crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Trump notches winning streak in Supreme Court emergency docket deluge
President Trump is on a winning streak at the Supreme Court with conservative-majority justices giving the green light for the president to resume his sweeping agenda. Their recent blessing of his firings of more independent agency leaders is the latest example of the court going the administration's way. This White House in six months has already brought more emergency appeals to the high court than former President Biden did during his four years in office, making it an increasingly dominant part of the Supreme Court's work. But as the court issues more and more emergency decisions, the practice has sometimes come under criticism — even by other justices. Trump prompts staggering activity Trump's Justice Department filed its 21 st emergency application on Thursday, surpassing the 19 that the Biden administration filed during his entire four-year term. The court has long dealt with requests to delay executions on its emergency docket, but the number of politically charged requests from the sitting administration has jumped in recent years, further skyrocketing under Trump. 'The numbers are startling,' said Kannon Shanmugam, who leads Paul, Weiss' Supreme Court practice, at a Federalist Society event Thursday. Trump's Justice Department asserts the burst reflects how 'activist' federal district judges have improperly blocked the president's agenda. Trump's critics say it shows how the president himself is acting lawlessly. But some legal experts blame Congress for being missing in action. 'There are a lot of reasons for this growth, but I think the biggest reason, in some sense, is the disappearance of Congress from the scene,' Shanmugam said. In his second term, Trump has almost always emerged victorious at the Supreme Court. The administration successfully halted lower judges' orders in all but two of the decided emergency appeals, and a third where they only partially won. On immigration, the justices allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants and swiftly deport people to countries where they have no ties while separately rebuffing a judge who ruled for migrants deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Other cases involve efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy and spending. The Supreme Court allowed the administration to freeze $65 million in teacher grants, provide Department of Government Efficiency personnel with access to sensitive Social Security data, proceed with mass firings of probationary employees and broader reorganizations and dismantle the Education Department. Last month, Trump got perhaps his biggest win yet, when the Supreme Court clawed back federal judges' ability to issue universal injunctions. The most recent decision, meanwhile, concerned Trump's bid to expand presidential power by eviscerating independent agency leaders' removal protections. The justices on Wednesday enabled Trump to fire three members on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Decisions often contain no explanation Unlike normal Supreme Court cases that take months to resolve, emergency cases follow a truncated schedule. The justices usually resolve the appeals in a matter of days after a singular round of written briefing and no oral argument. And oftentimes, the court acts without explanation. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, two of Trump's three appointees, have long defended the practice. Last year, the duo cautioned that explaining their preliminary thinking may 'create a lock-in effect' as a case progresses. At the Federalist Society event, Shanmugam suggested the court might have more energy for its emergency cases if the justices less frequently wrote separately on the merits docket — a dig at the many dissents and concurrences issued this term. But the real challenge, he said, is the speed at which the cases must be decided. 'It takes time to get members of the court to agree on reasoning, and sometimes I think it's therefore more expedient for the court to issue these orders without reasoning,' he said. 'Even though I think we would all agree that, all things being equal, it would be better for the court to provide more of that.' The frequent lack of explanation has at times left wiggle room and uncertainty. A month ago, the Supreme Court lifted a judge's injunction requiring the Trump administration to provide migrants with certain due process before deporting them to a country where they have no ties. With no explanation from the majority — only the liberal justices in dissent — the judge believed he could still enforce his subsequent ruling, which limited plans to deport a group of violent criminals to the war-torn country of South Sudan. The Trump administration accused him of defying the Supreme Court. Ultimately, the justices rebuked the judge, with even liberal Justice Elena Kagan agreeing. The Supreme Court's emergency interventions have also left lower judges to grapple with their precedential weight in separate cases. After the high court in May greenlit Trump's firings at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the administration began asserting lower courts still weren't getting the message. The emergency decision led many court watchers to believe the justices are poised to overturn their 90-year-old precedent protecting independent agency leaders from termination without cause. But several judges have since continued to block Trump's firings at other independent agencies, since the precedent still technically remains on the books. The tensions came to a head after a judge reinstated fired CPSC members. The Supreme Court said the earlier case decides how the later case must be interpreted, providing arguably their most succinct guidance yet for how their emergency rulings should be interpreted. 'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the unsigned ruling reads. Liberals object to emergency docket practices The lack of explanation in many of the court's emergency decisions has frustrated court watchers and judges alike, leading critics to call it the 'shadow docket.' Those critics include the Supreme Court's own liberal justices. 'Courts are supposed to explain things. That's what courts do,' Kagan said while speaking at a judicial conference Thursday. Kagan pointed to the court's decision last week greenlighting Trump's mass layoffs at the Education Department. She noted a casual observer might think the president is legally authorized to dismantle the agency, but the government didn't present that argument. Her fellow liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and, particularly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, have made more forceful criticisms. Jackson increasingly accuses her colleagues of threatening the rule of law. She called one recent emergency decision 'hubristic and senseless' and warned another was 'unleashing devastation.' Late last month, Jackson wrote that her colleagues had 'put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy.' But in Wednesday's decision letting the CPSC firings move forward, the trio were united. Kagan accused the majority of having 'effectively expunged' the Supreme Court precedent protecting independent agency leaders, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, from its records. 'And it has accomplished those ends with the scantiest of explanations,' she wrote. Kagan noted that the 'sole professed basis' for the stay order was its prior stay order in another case involving Trump's firing of independent agency heads. That decision — which cleared the way for Trump to fire NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB member Cathy Harris — was also 'minimally (and, as I have previously shown, poorly) explained,' she said. 'So only another under-reasoned emergency order undergirds today's,' Kagan wrote. 'Next time, though, the majority will have two (if still under reasoned) orders to cite.'


New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
Former employee sues Major League Soccer for discrimination
Major League Soccer executives undermined a black marketing director after he complained that they gave a promised promotion to a white colleague — then fired him, he claimed in a lawsuit. Cedric Shine, who began at MLS in December 2022 as a brand marketer, was fired in May after months of poor treatment from top bosses at the soccer league, he said in a July 18 Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit. Shine, 41, said he was told he was about to be given a new job as senior director of marketing for the league when new direct supervisors were installed in February. 3 Cedric Shine was hired by Major League Soccer in 2022. Cedric D. Shine/ LinkedIn But days later, the new bosses reversed course, he said in court papers. 'The decision to block Shine's promotion came mere weeks after Shine's new supervisors terminated one of the few Black Directors in the Marketing Department, Justin Cox,' according to the lawsuit. The higher level job was instead given to 'a Caucasian MLS Marketing Director,' Shine said in the legal filing. When he complained to MLS' human resources department about the move, 'and its racial implications,' Shine was promoted 'over his supervisors' objections' — triggering a 'campaign of retaliation against him,' he claimed. Bosses berated him, lied about him showing up late for work, slashed his marketing budget and would abruptly leave events he organized, leaving MLS corporate partners and MLS executives 'in attendance to question why marketing leadership was leaving the event and reflected extremely poorly on Shine,' he said in the litigation. 3 Shine claims he was the target of retaliation at work. Cedric D. Shine/ Instagram Questioning 'their views' on his performance 'would be frowned upon' and that he 'would be seen as someone who lacks the ability to accept constructive criticism,' bosses allegedly told Shine, he claimed in court papers. When other officials and MLS higher-ups ignored his complaints of retaliation, 'Shine attempted to schedule a meeting with MLS Deputy Commissioner Gary Stevenson, who oversaw the leadership team that had been retaliating against Shine.' Instead of a meeting with Stevenson, Shine was fired, according to the lawsuit. 3 Shine said his bosses lied about him arriving late for work. Cedric D. Shine/ Instagram 'As a proximate result of MLS' conduct, Shine has been adversely affected in his employment and career, emotional well-being, the quality of his life and in his normal life's pursuits, and Shine believes MLS' conduct … has and will continue to have a negative effect upon him.' Shine is seeking unspecified damages. The league, which has instituted anti-racism campaigns in the wake of several high profile incidents, denied Shine's accusations. 'Shine's allegations of retaliation have no merit and the League intends to vigorously defend the recently filed lawsuit,' MLS said in a statement, adding the league is committed 'to providing an equitable and inclusive environment.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Massie says he assumes some of ‘Trump's friends' are in Epstein files
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he assumes 'at least some of Trump's friends' could be among the many people named in Jeffrey Epstein's files, but said authorities may be hesitant to release information that could name people who actually did nothing wrong. Massie, a cosponsor of a bill that would require the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, is hopeful the measure will come up for a vote when the House returns in September. 'The thing about the files that everybody needs to understand is there are probably lots of names in there who haven't done anything criminal, and so there's a reluctance to release these files because of the embarrassment just having your name on the news in these files. And I always presumed that there were at least some of Trump's friends named in this, and that might be why,' Massie told reporters Wednesday. The Trump administration in recent days has released a number of other files of interest to the MAGA base, including some on Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election and others related to Hillary Clinton's email server and the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. But if designed to be a distraction, it doesn't appear to be working, as many of Trump's supporters are still demanding to see information on the Epstein case. Massie said he expected anticipation on the Epstein issue to build over the coming recess, noting members may face questions on their position on the files as they head to town halls. 'I think this issue will not dissipate. I think it will grow over the August recess,' he said. He also faulted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for recessing the House a day earlier than expected rather than taking a vote on the controversial measure. 'I think he's just trying to do Trump a favor, that makes sense? He doesn't want a paper thin sliver of daylight between him and the president, and so that's why he's avoided taking even the symbolic vote on the nonbinding resolution,' Massie said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.