Luigi Mangione has filed new court papers saying that President Donald Trump and his team are hurting his chances of getting a fair trial. They are making public comments that wrongly connect him to violent acts and extreme groups. The 26-year-old faces federal murder charges for killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. He says things got worse after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed on September 10.
A federal judge has now warned the Department of Justice that some of its workers may have broken rules about talking publicly before a trial. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said Wednesday that at least two top DOJ staff members seem to have broken court rules by making public statements about the case. The judge said that more rule-breaking could lead to punishments, fines, or contempt charges.
According to TMZ, in the court filing, Mangione’s lawyers wrote that Trump is trampling his right to a fair trial by making harmful comments. “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,” his legal team said. They argue that Charlie Kirk’s recent murder has only made this harmful talk worse.
Trump team faces heat over public comments
The court papers point to several specific comments made by Trump and his team members. On September 18, Trump went on Fox News and talked about the UnitedHealthcare shooting. He said Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me” and called it “a sickness” that needs to be looked into. The defense team noted that a White House social media account then shared this clip with millions of followers.
BREAKING: Luigi Mangione’s team has just filed a letter stating that attempts by POTUS, White House officials, and DOJ staff to link him to violent incidents and portray him as a “left-wing extremist” are false, prejudicial, and part of a broader political narrative. pic.twitter.com/3gvJmKvT17
— The Luigi Case (@LuigiCaseFiles) September 24, 2025
Chad Gilmartin works as the deputy director of the DOJ Office of Public Affairs. He reposted Trump’s video and said the president “is absolutely right.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also made comments on September 22. She called Mangione a “left wing assassin who shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson right in the back in New York City.”
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made things worse during a September 23 Fox News interview. He talked about the healthcare CEO being “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 say these attempts to paint him as a left-wing violent extremist are false and have no place in a criminal case where the death penalty is possible.
Mangione faces federal murder charges and prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty. He also faces state charges and has said he is not guilty to all counts. His lawyers argue that the government’s public statements are part of a political story that threatens his right to a fair trial in this big case. The motives behind the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killing remain unclear despite months of investigation. Meanwhile, investigators have caught the suspected assassin in Charlie Kirk’s murder, though the case continues to develop.
