Zach Jule
Appearances
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Well, the latest is that Manhattan DA Elvin Bragg has decided to bring several charges against Mangione. One count of first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism and two counts of second-degree murder, one of which is charged as killing as an act of terrorism. Bragg announced the charges in a press conference earlier this week.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Here's the Manhattan District Attorney discussing some of the reasoning behind the charges.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Bragg alleges that Mangione killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to, quote, evoke terror. Authorities say he was found with a notebook that included a passage about taking out Thompson at what he called the, quote, annual parasitic bean counter convention. The CEO was gunned down as he was walking to his company's annual investors conference.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Mangione also allegedly raged against the U.S. healthcare system and specifically cited UnitedHealthcare. At a press conference Tuesday, New York authorities also made a point of condemning those lifting Mangione up as a hero. Here's NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Yes and no. While a first-degree murder charge seems obvious for the type of assassination that was caught on video, New York has a different standard than most states for what qualifies as first-degree murder.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
The charge is rare in the state as it only applies to those accused of killing a witness, judge, or first responder, or those accused of killing in a murder-for-hire plot or through terrorism.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Now, after 9-11, New York also passed a law allowing prosecutors to tack on terrorism charges if the crime intended to intimidate a civilian population and influence the government through murder, assassination, or kidnapping. And that's a paraphrase, but the FBI uses that same definition for domestic terrorism.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
There is some precedent on that law that suggests prosecutors will have difficulty proving it. For example, in 2002, a Harlem gangster was charged with terrorism after he opened fire outside of a christening. He ended up killing a 10-year-old girl and paralyzing a rival gang member.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
A decade later, though, the state's highest court ruled that he was not a terrorist and he was retried and convicted on other charges. In this case, Bragg alleges that Mangione, quote, intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population and to affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination, or kidnapping.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
But how exactly the murder of Thompson applies to the government wasn't immediately clear as Thompson worked for a private healthcare company. Anna Kaminsky, she's the director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at New York Law School. She told the New York Times that accusing him of committing terrorism seems unusual.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
She said, and paraphrasing here, what the prosecutors are saying is because of where and how this murder took place shows that it was intended to scare people, not just kill someone. Jessica Roth, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN that the terrorism charges suggest prosecutors are setting up a plea deal.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Mitchell Epner, another former federal prosecutor, told Forbes that the terrorism charges are merely performative. He suggests that a second-degree murder charge would have been much easier to argue. Final question, what's next for this case? Yeah, the extradition hearing in Pennsylvania is today, and Mangione's lawyer says he's not going to fight it.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
So we'll likely be seeing him move to New York as early as today.