UnitedHealthcare CEO killing latest: Luigi Mangione’s lawyer has seen ‘no evidence’ linking gun to New York
Thomas Dickey, defense attorney for Luigi Mangione/ABC News
(NEW YORK) — The defense attorney representing Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, said he has seen “no evidence” linking his client to the killing, adding that “a lot of guns look the same.”
“I have not been made aware of any evidence that links the gun that was found on his person to the crime so these are things that we’re looking to see,” attorney Thomas Dickey told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
“Today’s another day,” he added. “We’re looking forward to beginning our inquiry as to what evidence may or may not be out there.”
The attorney said Mangione is “taking it as well as he can.”
Mangione, 26, plans to challenge his extradition from Pennsylvania to New York, where he faces a charge of second-degree murder in connection with Thompson’s Dec. 4 outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
The Ivy League graduate was arrested on Monday in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and charged in Pennsylvania for allegedly possessing an untraceable “ghost” gun.”
“He has constitutional rights and that’s what he’s doing” in challenging the interstate transfer, Dickey told reporters on Tuesday.
Police officials in New York have not said whether the gun recovered in Pennsylvania is considered a match for the one used in the killing last week, but said it looks similar and that it would undergo ballistic testing.
“A lot of guns look the same,” Dickey said on Wednesday. “If you brought a gun in and said, ‘Well, it looks like that,’ I don’t even know if that evidence would be admissible. So I would argue it wouldn’t be given much weight.”
He also cautioned that anyone speculating on the case should take the potential evidence “in its entirety,” not taking pieces of writing or other evidence “out of context.”
“People put out certain things, parts of different things,” he said. “I think any lawyer involved in this situation would want to see it all.”
Mangione plans to plead not guilty to the charges filed against him in Pennsylvania, Dickey said. A judge in Pennsylvania ordered Mangione held without bail on Tuesday.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it will seek a governor’s warrant to try to force Mangione’s extradition. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement that she’ll sign a request for the governor’s warrant “to ensure this individual is tried and held accountable.”
Dickey said he anticipates that Mangione would also plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York.
Mangione yelled to the press about “an insult to the intelligence of the American people” as he was physically dragged into the courthouse on Tuesday.
When Mangione was arrested on Monday, he had “written admissions about the crime” with him, according to the New York arrest warrant.
Mangione’s writings, obtained by ABC News, were addressed to the “Feds” and said, “I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.”
He claimed that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world, but ranks about No. 42 in life expectancy. He said UnitedHealthcare “has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit.”
Whether Mangione has a personal connection to UnitedHealthcare is unknown, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
A UnitedHealth Group spokesperson said in a statement that they hope the arrest “brings some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy. We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation.”
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(SEATTLE) — A federal judge in Seattle has signed a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on Thursday heard a request made by four Democratic-led states to issue a temporary restraining order against the executive order signed by Trump that purports to limit birthright citizenship — long guaranteed by the 14th Amendment — to people who have at least one parent who is a United States citizen or permanent resident.
“I have been on the bench for over four decades,” said Judge Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
“In your opinion, is this executive order constitutional?” he asked DOJ attorney Brett Shumate.
“Yes, we think it is,” Shumate said, drawing the judge’s rebuke.
“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” Coughenour said. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”
Shumate implored Coughenour to hold off on blocking the order, saying that it does not take effect until Feb. 19.
“It’s enough to say there is no imminent harm that the states will incur as a result of this order,” Shumate said. “We urge the court not to grant any temporary order today on the merits. What makes sense is to have a full briefing on the preliminary injunction.”
“Births cannot be paused while the court considers this case,” said Lane Polozola, an attorney representing the state attorneys general, who said Trump’s executive order attempts to change a part of the Constitution that is “off limits” after being settled across a century of legal precedent.
Judge Coughenour appeared convinced, ending the hearing by saying that he signed the temporary restraining order and that he would consider whether to grant a long-term injunction over the coming weeks.
Coughenour’s order temporarily enjoins Trump and any federal employee from enforcing or implementing the executive order.
“The Plaintiff States have also shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief,” Coughenour wrote, citing the costs of medical care, social services, and administrative work encountered by the four states who sued Trump.
“The balance of equities tips toward the Plaintiff States and the public interest strongly weighs in favor of entering temporary relief,” the order said.
Thursday’s ruling was the first legal test of Trump’s executive order reinterpreting the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, which Trump long promised on the campaign trail. The executive action is expected to spark a lengthy legal challenge that could define the president’s sweeping immigration agenda.
Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and two cities have sued Trump over the executive order, and the president faces at least five separate lawsuits over the policy.
In an interview with ABC News after the hearing, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown said he plans to continue fighting the executive order if the Trump administration appeals to a higher court.
“I don’t think it ends here,” Brown said. “First and foremost, there are other cases being brought across the country, and so those cases will continue to move forward, and this president and this administration certainly has a propensity to keep these fights going, and so I anticipate that will happen moving forward.”
Coughenour scheduled Thursday’s in-person hearing in the case brought by the attorneys general of Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Illinois. In a federal complaint filed on Tuesday, the four attorneys general argued that Trump’s policy would unlawfully strip at least 150,000 newborn children each year of citizenship entitled to them by federal law and the 14th Amendment.
“The Plaintiff States will also suffer irreparable harm because thousands of children will be born within their borders but denied full participation and opportunity in American society,” the lawsuit says. “Absent a temporary restraining order, children born in the Plaintiff States will soon be rendered undocumented, subject to removal or detention, and many stateless.”
The lawsuit argues that enforcement of Trump’s executive order would cause irreparable harm to the children born from undocumented parents by preventing them from enjoying their right to “full participation and opportunity in American society.”
“They will lose their right to vote, serve on juries, and run for certain offices,” the complaint says. “And they will be placed into lifelong positions of instability and insecurity as part of a new underclass in the United States.”
Lawyers for the Department of Justice, now under new leadership, opposed the request for a temporary restraining order in a court filing Wednesday.
Intended to take effect next month, Trump’s executive order seeks to reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship by arguing a child born in the United States to an undocumented mother cannot receive citizenship unless his or her father is a citizen or green card holder.
While most countries confer a child’s citizenship based on their parents, the United States and more than two dozen countries, including Canada and Mexico, follow the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil.”
Following the Civil War, the United States codified jus soli through the passage of the 14th Amendment, repudiating the Supreme Court’s finding in Dred Scott v. Sanford that African Americans were ineligible for citizenship.
“President Trump and the federal government now seek to impose a modern version of Dred Scott. But nothing in the Constitution grants the President, federal agencies, or anyone else authority to impose conditions on the grant of citizenship to individuals born in the United States,” the states’ lawsuit argued.
The Supreme Court further enshrined birthright citizenship in 1898 when it found that the San Francisco-born son of Chinese immigrants was an American citizen despite the Chinese Exclusion Act restricting immigration from China and prohibiting Chinese Americans from becoming naturalized citizens.
By seeking to end birthright citizenship, Trump’s executive order centers on the same phrase within the 14th Amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — that the Supreme Court considered in 1898. Trump’s executive order argues that text of the 14th Amendment excludes children born of parents who are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, such as people who are unlawfully in the U.S.
While legal scholars have expressed skepticism about the legality of Trump’s executive order, the lawsuit could set the stage for a lengthy legal battle that ends up before the Supreme Court.
(BOSTON) — As more than two million federal employees face a midnight Thursday deadline to accept the Trump administration’s buyout offer, a federal judge in Massachusetts will consider an eleventh-hour request to block the buyout from moving forward.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. set Thursday afternoon hearing to consider a request by three federal unions to issue a temporary restraining order that would suspend Thursday’s deadline for the buyout and require the Office of Personnel Management to provide a legal basis for the unprecedented offer, which offers to continue to pay federal employees through Sept. 30, 2025, if they resign by Thursday at 11;59 p.m..
Three unions representing a combined 800,000 federal civil servants argue that the “deferred resignation” offer is unlawful, arbitrary, and would result in a “dangerous one-two punch” to the federal government.
“First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress has, by statute, directed the Executive to faithfully implement,” the lawsuit said. “And second, when vacant positions become politicized, as this Administration seeks to do, partisanship is elevated over ability and truth, to the detriment of agency missions and the American people.”
The lawsuit comes as at least 40,000 federal workers — roughly 2% of the civilian federal workforce — have accepted the deferred resignation offer to leave the federal government since last week, ABC News has reported.
The three unions — the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — argue that the OPM violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide a legal basis for the buyout offer and leaving open the possibility that the government might not follow through with the buyout once federal employees agree to resign.
The lawsuit added that the buyout’s promise of payments through September violates the law because the current appropriation for federal agencies expires in March. Moreover, the buyout is unfair because it was made alongside a threat of future layoffs, the lawsuit said.
The buyout offer, part of DOGE head Elon Musk’s effort to trim the size of government under President Donald Trump, was sent out under the subject line “Fork in the Road” — the same language Musk used when he slashed jobs at Twitter after taking over that company in 2022.
“To leverage employees into accepting the offer and resigning, the Fork Directive threatens employees with eventual job loss in the event that they refuse to resign,” the unions’ lawsuit says.
Overall, the lawsuit alleges that the OPM rushed the offer with a questionable legal basis, largely mimicking Elon Musk’s management style following his takeover of Twitter.
“OPM’s rapid adoption of Musk’s private-sector program confirms that the agency took very little time to consider the suitability of applying an approach used with questionable success in a single for-profit entity to the entirety of the federal workforce,” says the lawsuit.
Emergency vehicles and rescue crews gather along the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport after an air crash near Washington, DC, on January 29, 2025. A regional jet from Kansas crashed into Washington’s Potomac River after colliding mid-air with a military helicopter near Reagan National Airport, officials said Wednesday, prompting a major emergency response and grounding all flights. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A regional American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided over Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night in the nation’s first major commercial airline crash since 2009.
There are confirmed fatalities from the collision, law enforcement sources familiar with the ongoing operation told ABC News. Several bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River, and so far, no survivors have been rescued, sources said.
There were 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the jet, which can hold up to 70 passengers. It departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA.
“I know that flight. I’ve flown it many times myself,” Jerry Moran, a senator from Kansas, said at a press briefing on Thursday morning.
“I lobbied American Airlines to begin having a direct, nonstop flight service to DCA,” he said of the route, which has been operating for about one year.
“It is certainly true that in Kansas and in Wichita in particular, we’re going to know people who are on this flight, know their family members, know somebody. So this is a very personal circumstance, as well as an official response,” Moran added.
Three Army soldiers were aboard the Black Hawk helicopter at the time of the crash. Army officials confirmed that no senior military leaders were onboard.
The Black Hawk helicopter was on a training flight at the time, according to Heather Chairez, spokesperson for Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.
It was based at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, according to an Army official. “We are working with local officials and will provide additional information once it becomes available,” the official said.
The collision involved American Airlines Flight 5342, the airline said. The flight was operated by PSA Airlines.
“Our concern is for the passengers and crew on board the aircraft,” the airline said. “We are in contact with authorities and assisting with emergency response efforts.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said preliminary information indicates that a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided in midair with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter while on approach to the airport.
A multi-agency search-and-rescue operation is underway, authorities said. About 300 responders were on the scene as of late Wednesday night, according to D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly.
The operation will continue overnight as divers and boats are searching the dark, frigid waters of the Potomac River.
Officials have not provided an update on whether anyone had been pulled from the water or taken to the hospital but three emergency care providers in the Washington, D.C. region have confirmed with ABC News that they have not yet received any patients from the crash.
“At this time, we have not received any patients,” VHC Health, formerly the Virginia Hospital Center, said in a statement at midnight on Wednesday. “The crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is a sad and shocking tragedy and our thoughts are with all those impacted by this incident. We are working directly with the Arlington and Metropolitan Police Department, Fire, and EMS teams and all authorities,” VHC Health said, adding, “VHC Health is prepared to assist and support first responders as these agencies continue their emergency response.”
The water temperature in the Potomac River is approximately 36 degrees, and the air temperature at the time of the crash was 50 degrees with winds gusting 25 to 30 mph.
This is the first major commercial airplane crash in the United States since the Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, in 2009.
President Donald Trump released a statement following the crash Wednesday night.
“I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise,” he wrote.
The president followed up with a post on Truth Social that seemed to be probing for further answers regarding the cause of the crash.
“Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane,” he wrote in the post, adding, “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Army and Defense Department would “immediately” launch an investigation into the collision.
“Absolutely tragic. Search and rescue efforts still ongoing. Prayers for all impacted souls, and their families. Investigation launched immediately by Army & DoD,” Hegseth wrote on X.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said “extensive resources are fully supporting the search and rescue efforts” following the crash.
“First responders from across Northern Virginia, DC and Maryland mobilized quickly,” he said on X. “I ask everyone to pray for the passengers, crews, their families, and brave first responders.”
Wichita Mayor Lily Wu discussed the reality of people from her community being on the flight — noting that the first direct flight from Wichita to the nation’s capital, which began daily service on Jan. 8, 2024, coincided with her first day in office.
“Our entire community right now is praying, hoping for better news,” Wu told ABC News. “But as a community, the entire city of Wichita, the city council members and the staff all throughout the city of Wichita are hoping that we have better news to come out of this.”
Meanwhile, in somber remarks at a news conference early Thursday morning, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall suggested he feared the passengers and crew aboard a regional American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter that collided were lost.
“When one person dies, it’s a tragedy,” Marshall said. “But when many, many, many people die, it’s an unbearable sorrow … It’s really hard when you lose, you know, probably over 60 Kansans, simultaneously.”
Speaking of the pilots, flight attendants and military personnel, Marshall added, “All those lives are so valuable, and it is such a tragedy that we lost them.”
Officials have not publicly confirmed any fatalities.
However, U.S. Figure Skating issued a statement saying that “several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342,” according to the statement obtained by ABC News.
“U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C. These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas,” the statement said. “We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.”
Russian media also reported that two Russian figure skaters were on board the plane and expressed condolences to the families and friends of those killed in the plane crash.
“Unfortunately, we see that these sad information is being confirmed,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday morning. “There were other of our fellow citizens there. Bad news from Washington today.”
Earlier, several Russian state media outlets were reporting that Russian world figure skating champions in pairs (1994) Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board the plane, though U.S. authorities have not confirmed these reports.
At least 19 aircraft that were in the air and due to land at Reagan National Airport had to be diverted after the mid-air collision, according to Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The diverted flights landed at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and the FBI Washington Field Office said in a statement that it’s sending its National Capital Response Squad “in support of our law enforcement and public safety partners.”
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will be closed until 11 a.m. Thursday, officials confirmed first thing in the morning, rather than the original estimated reopening time of 5 a.m. Friday,
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
