UnitedHealth Group says slain CEO Brian Thompson was ‘one of the good guys’
JHVEPhoto/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A week after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in New York, the health insurer’s parent company is praising him as “one of the good guys” and seeking to both console employees and reassure them that their work makes a difference.
In a message to the company’s nearly 400,000 employees, Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group — UnitedHealthcare’s parent company — confirmed Thompson was laid to rest on Monday and that colleagues gathered in Minnesota on Tuesday for a memorial.
“I know this has been an extraordinarily difficult week,” Witty said in the letter, obtained by ABC News. “Our company remains in a state of mourning.”
Referring to Thompson, 50, who had led the world’s largest health insurer since 2021, Witty said: “It was a life lived to the absolute fullest. And a life that helped make a profoundly positive impact on the lives of so many people. People he never saw. People he never met. People who never knew him. But people Brian cared so deeply about.”
He added: “Brian was one of the good guys. He was certainly one of the smartest guys. I think he was one of the best guys. I’m going to miss him. And I am incredibly proud to call him my friend.”
Thompson’s killing thrust the nation’s health care industry into the spotlight.
When suspect Luigi Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, investigators discovered he had writings with him that criticized health care companies.
A bulletin from the New York Police Department warned of heightened risks to health care executives in the wake of the shooting, citing social media posts that expressed frustration with the health insurance industry and celebrated Thompson’s death.
Witty’s letter to employees said the best way to remember Thompson “is to carry on his legacy — continuing to do right by the people who’ve entrusted us with their care and those who are counting on us to take care of their loved ones.”
The letter added: “We owe it to Brian to make good on our promise to make health care work better for everybody, in every way.”
Witty’s letter also shared messages of support from people who shared their sympathies and described how UnitedHealthcare had helped them. He said the company has received thousands of phone calls, text messages, comments and emails offering condolences and gratitude.
“I am super proud to be a part of an organization that does so much good for so many and to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the most compassionate, most dedicated and truly brilliant people in health care,” Witty said in the letter. “I hope you feel that, too.”
(ATLANTA, Ga.) — The Georgia Court of Appeals has disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants in their election interference case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court ruled.
The indictment against Trump and his co-defendants still stands, the court said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Thursday’s ruling leaves the question of who takes over the case — and whether it continues — to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia. That decision may be delayed if Trump or Willis continues their appeal to the state’s highest court, Georgia’s Supreme Court.
The case has been on pause after Trump and his co-defendants launched an effort to have Willis disqualified from the case over her relationship with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, leading Trump to appeal that decision.
The appeals court ruled to disqualify Willis and her entire office from the case because “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the ruling said.
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring,” the order said, reversing Judge McAfee’s original decision.
Wade, who had been the lead prosecutor in the case, resigned as special prosecutor in March after McAfee issued his ruling that either Willis or Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between the DA and the prosecutor.
While the appeals court disqualified Willis and her office, it did not find enough evidence to justify “the extreme sanction” of tossing the entire indictment against Trump and his co-defendants, as Trump had sought in his appeal.
“While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard,” the ruling said.
Judge Clay Land — one of the three judges on the appeals panel — dissented from the decision, arguing that reversing the trial court “violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion given to trial courts, and blurs the distinction between our respective courts.”
Land argued that the appearance of impropriety — rather than a true conflict of interest — is not enough to reverse Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis.
“For at least the last 43 years, our appellate courts have held that an appearance of impropriety, without an actual conflict of interest or actual impropriety, provides no basis for the reversal of a trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he wrote.
In his dissent, Land emphasized that the trial court found that Willis did not have a conflict of interest and rejected the allegations of impropriety stemming from her relationship with Wade, including the allegation that she received a financial benefit from his hiring.
“It was certainly critical of her choices and chastised her for making them. I take no issue with that criticism, and if the trial court had chosen, in its discretion, to disqualify her and her office, this would be a different case,” he wrote. “But that is not the remedy the trial court chose, and I believe our case law prohibits us from rejecting that remedy just because we don’t like it or just because we might have gone further had we been the trial judge.”
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — Ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington were set on fire early Monday, police in both states said.
It is unclear if the two arson incidents, which occurred near the Oregon-Washington border, are connected.
In the first reported incident, a ballot box in Portland, Oregon, was set on fire with an incendiary device, police said.
Portland police responded to reports of a fire at a ballot box around 3:30 a.m. local time on Monday. Security at the Multnomah County Elections Division responded and extinguished the fire, officials said.
“Officers determined an incendiary device was placed inside the ballot box and used to ignite the fire,” the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement.
The bureau’s explosive disposal unit cleared the device, police said.
Fire suppressant prevented further damage and protected “virtually all the ballots,” though three were damaged, the Multnomah County Elections Division said in a press release.
Elections officials will contact the three impacted voters so they can receive replacement ballots, the division said.
“We have multiple systems and security measures in place to ensure your ballot is safe,” Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott said in a statement.
No other ballot boxes or official drop sites in Multnomah County were affected, the division said.
The Portland Fire Investigations Unit is investigating.
About a half hour later, around 4 a.m. local time, officers in Vancouver, Washington, responded to a report of a ballot box that was smoking and on fire, police said.
“Officers arrived and located a suspicious device next to the box,” which was on fire, the Vancouver Police Department said in a statement.
The fire was extinguished, and members of the Metro Explosive Disposal Unit safely collected the device, police said.
The extent of damage to ballots remains unclear.
The FBI is investigating the incident, police said.
Authorities are investigating a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump Las Vegas hotel in Nevada, Jan. 1, 2025. Obtained by ABC News.
(LAS VEGAS) — The suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded Wednesday outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel has been identified as active duty Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger, according to an official briefed on the probe.
The FBI, with the assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are searching his Colorado Springs home on Thursday morning, officials said.
Livelsberger had already been identified as the person who rented the vehicle via the Turo app, though officials previously said they had still been working through forensics to determine the identity of the person behind the wheel at the time of the incident. The fire and explosion made the identification process difficult because of the physical injuries sustained by the driver, the official said.
Livelsberger served in the Army and was on approved leave at the time of his death, a U.S. Army spokesperson said Thursday.
The incident is not believed to have any direct connection to the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans that killed 15 people and injured dozens more, according to the official briefed on the probe. The military is looking into whether the two drivers may have overlapped at Fort Liberty or in Afghanistan, though no evidence suggests the two ever were assigned together or knew each other, according to the official.
“At this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas,” the FBI’s Christopher Raia said Thursday morning at a press conference on the New Orleans attack.
Livelsberger was a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, the official briefed on the probe told ABC News. His wife, who investigators spoke to in Colorado Springs, said he had been out of the house since around Christmas after a dispute over allegations of infidelity, the official said.
His wife told officials she did not believe Livelsberger would want to hurt anyone, the official told ABC News.
Two firearms — one handgun and one rifle — were found badly burned inside the vehicle. Livelsberger is believed to have told the person he rented the truck from that he was going camping at the Grand Canyon, the official told ABC News.
Investigators are still looking to determine how the items in the truck was detonated, but with the contents of the vehicle so badly burned, it may be a slow process, according to the official.
The vehicle was picked up by license plate readers traveling from Colorado to Las Vegas on Wednesday morning.
The investigation into the incident spans at least four states, and law enforcement officials are probing it as a possible act of terror.
The motive behind the incident remains under investigation, even as investigators tell ABC News that they believe it was “intentional.”
The driver of the Cybertruck pulled into the valet area of the hotel and the vehicle exploded, according to an official. The driver was the only fatality from the incident. Seven bystanders had minor injuries, authorities said.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters the truck was in front of the hotel for 15 to 20 seconds before it exploded.
The sheriff said Tesla CEO Elon Musk helped the investigation by having the truck unlocked after it auto-locked in the blast and by giving investigators video of the suspect at charging stations along its route from Colorado to Las Vegas.
McMahill said investigators were looking into any possible connections to the deadly attack in New Orleans earlier Wednesday but had not yet discovered any. The truck used in the New Orleans attack was also rented via the Turo app, sources said.
Video played at the Las Vegas news conference showed a load of fireworks-style mortars, gasoline cans and camping fuel canisters in the back of the truck.
McMahill said police believe the explosion was an “isolated incident” and that “there is no further threat to the community.” He also said police do not believe anyone was helping the Las Vegas suspect.
“We believe everything is safe now,” McMahill said.
The property is the subject of frequent threats and heightened security given its connection to Trump.
Musk, a close ally of Trump, said on Wednesday afternoon that the “whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now.”
“Will post more information as soon as we learn anything,” Musk wrote on X, which he also owns. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”
Musk later posted on X: “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.” It’s not known if Musk’s claim has been independently verified.
An official briefed on the investigation told ABC News “this was not a lithium battery” blast, as some have speculated online. There have been instances in the past of battery compartments in Tesla vehicles spontaneously catching fire.
Trump’s son Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted on social media about the incident.
“Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas,” he wrote. “The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their swift response and professionalism.”
The hotel also issued a statement on X suggesting the car involved was electric.
“Earlier today a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas,” the hotel wrote. “The safety & well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority. We extend our gratitude to the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their swift response.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the fire and explosion near the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas and has directed his team to offer any federal assistance needed, the White House said.
