DOJ in Trouble After Lawyers Reposted Trump Rant on Luigi Mangione

Justice Department lawyers reposting President Trump’s statements may have inadvertently endangered their prosecution of Luigi Mangione, who is on trial for the alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December.

On September 18, Trump said in a Fox News interview that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me.... He shot him right in the middle of the back — instantly dead.... This is a sickness. This really has to be studied and investigated.” All of what Trump said was only alleged. 

A clip of the interview was posted by conservative page Rapid Response 47. DOJ Public Affairs head Chad Gilmartin retweeted it, commenting that the president was “absolutely right,” violating the judge’s explicit orders that DOJ employees refrain from public comment about the  case. 

Mangione’s defense team promptly notified the court that they will be filing a motion to dismiss and a suppression motion on Friday. 

Federal prosecutors are defending Gilmartin’s actions, saying he and other department employees “operate entirely outside the scope of the prosecution team, possess no operational role in the investigative or prosecutorial functions of the Mangione matter, and are not ‘associated’ with this litigation,” according to the filing, as reported by NBC News. 

Mangione has pleaded not guilty, and already had charges of state terrorism dismissed in September. 

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia MAGA Republican, criticized Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday for delaying the swearing-in of Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat.

Amid the ongoing government shutdown, Johnson has cancelled regular House sessions and held off on swearing in Grijalva—who was elected more than two weeks ago—during the brief pro forma sessions taking place in the meantime.

But since Johnson previously swore in GOP representatives during pro formas, Democrats are accusing the speaker of dragging his feet due to Grijalva’s stance on releasing all unclassified documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. The Arizona Democrat would provide the deciding, 218th signature on a petition to force a House vote on the Epstein files’ release.

Johnson denies that the petition—currently signed by 213 Democrats, as well as Greene and three fellow Republicans—has anything to do with his reluctance vis-à-vis Grijalva.

“I can’t conclusively say if that’s why the House is not in session, but the House should be in session,” Greene told CNN on Thursday. “And the House should be in session for many reasons. We have appropriation bills that need to get passed. There is a new Democrat that’s been elected that does deserve to be sworn in. Her district elected her. We have other bills that we need to be passing.”

If Johnson is indeed just hoping to avoid the discharge petition, Greene said, “Why drag this out? That is going to have 218 signatures, and I say go ahead and do it, and get it over with.”

The Georgia Republican has proven very willing of late to defy her party’s leadership. Also during her CNN interview, for example, Greene said Johnson and the Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune “absolutely” deserve the blame for the shutdown. “We control the House, we control the Senate, we have the White House,” she added. “This doesn’t have to be a shutdown.”

Republicans are already working to downplay rural hospitals shutting down as a result of President Donald Trump’s behemoth budget reconciliation bill.

During an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday, Nebraska Representative Mike Flood didn’t deny co-host Joe Scarborough, who told him that six rural hospitals would likely shutter as a result of the massive cuts to Medicaid he voted for. In fact, Flood didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

Flood claimed that the Senate’s supplementary $50 billion fund for a rural health transformation program would offset some of the squeeze, but admitted that many rural hospitals would need to prepare to be stripped of essential services.

“Here’s the deal: Some hospitals in America, that are rural hospitals, are going to eventually have to transition from being acute bed hospitals into, like, an emergency room model,” Flood said.

The Senate’s $50 billion fund—which is little over one third of the estimated loss in federal funding to rural hospitals—-would force hospitals to “think creatively about what kind of services we need in really small towns,” Flood explained.

But it’s still unclear how exactly the money would be distributed, according to KFF. The law did not offer specific criteria that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would use to approve or deny applications for funding, rules about how cash would be allocated, or language requiring transparency about how the decisions are made. One can easily imagine that if the decision is in the hands of Trump, who has already moved to gut programs in blue states, total compliance with his agenda would be necessary to receive support.

Trump’s behemoth budget bill will cut nearly one trillion from Medicaid funding over the next 10 years, resulting in the mass closure of rural hospitals, which are already struggling to survive.

Because more people receive and rely on Medicaid coverage in rural communities than in urban areas, cuts to Medicaid would force rural hospitals, which already operate on razor thin margins, to absorb skyrocketing rates of uncompensated care, according to the National Rural Health Association. The continued strain will force them to cut services and personnel, and eventually close. More than 45 percent of rural hospitals in the United States operate with negative margins, and more than 300 rural hospitals are at risk of closing as a result of Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.”

And Nebraska, Flood’s home state, is no exception. The Nebraska Rural Health Association found that 39 of the state’s 71 rural hospitals have a two percent or less operating margin. Of those hospitals, 29 had negative operating margins in 2018, and 22 of them had a -3 percent margin or less.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health published a report in May that found that cuts to Medicaid would cost 110,000 Nebraskans their health insurance and put 5,000 Nebraskans out of their jobs.

But when asked whether the Medicaid cuts would hurt rural hospitals, Flood claimed that his state was on an “upward trend” in terms of health care access. “We do have resources here, and our hospitals and doctors are providing great care. I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t live it. I live it, I live in it, I love it,” he said.

But it’s not whether the high quality care already exists, but how long it will be accessible that is concerning health care experts and constituents.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is exhausted with Republican leadership as they fluster and flounder the government shutdown.

So far, the government has been shut down for more than eight days—the result of a boiling disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, left over from the spring, about how to fund Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget.

Republicans want to pass a “clean” continuing resolution, which would provide the executive branch with unfettered funds to advance the president’s agenda as outlined in his July legislation. That would include ruinous cuts to Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid, a position that Democrats have demonstrated for months is a nonstarter.

In the eight days since discussions broke down, conservatives have overwhelmingly blamed Democrats for the federal failure. But in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday, one of the party’s most far-right figures argued that Republicans’ blame game won’t get them very far with the American public—especially as the GOP clutches every branch of the federal government.

“There’s a lot of things we can be working on in the House, and that’s our appropriation bills. There’s many other bills we could be passing right now,” Greene said on the paper’s podcast Politically Georgia.

“I don’t think it’s believable to tell the American people that while we control the White House, the House, and the Senate, that we can’t return to work in Washington, D.C., because Chuck Schumer and six other Democrats won’t vote to open the government,” Greene continued. “I know people. They don’t believe that.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled chamber votes and sent lawmakers home earlier this month as party leadership works to negotiate with Democrats, but the decision hasn’t gone down well with members of his caucus.

“I’m against the [continuing resolution] and I’m for appropriations,” Greene said. “I really don’t see how we’ll ever pass the appropriations if we continue to sit at home and then we have another deadline coming on November 20.”

Beyond that, Republicans have failed to align their messaging on the shutdown, making for a messy public spectacle. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have repeatedly flubbed attempts to coordinate their priorities with the White House, which has so far been more absorbed in punishing Trump’s political allies than in coming to a congressional resolution.

Still, none of Greene’s criticism was directed at Trump. Reacting in a separate interview to a Washington Post poll that found that the majority of Americans believed that Trump and Republicans in Congress were at fault for the shutdown, Greene said that she wouldn’t put the “blame on the president.”

“I’m actually putting the blame on the speaker and Leader Thune in the Senate,” Greene told CNN Thursday. “This should not be happening. As a member of Congress, we already have a low enough job approval rating. This shutdown is just going to drive everybody’s approval rating that much lower.”

The Georgia lawmaker has somewhat divorced herself from the MAGA brand in recent months.

Greene, who won her district in 2020 without the president’s endorsement, has publicly broken with Trump several times since his inauguration. She’s differed from her “favorite president” on issues ranging from artificial intelligence to Russia’s assault on Ukraine, and has also sparred with the White House over the executive branch’s apparent hostility toward demands to release the Epstein files. Now she appears to vehemently disagree with Trump’s position on the shutdown, which has thus far involved a blame campaign that legal experts argue is in violation of the Hatch Act.

House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on C-SPAN’s morning call-in program on Thursday, where he took heat from callers on both sides of the political aisle.

Samantha, a Republican caller from Virginia, told Johnson she lives “paycheck to paycheck” with “two medically fragile children” and a husband who serves in the military.

“If we see a lapse in pay come the 15th, my children do not get to get the medication that’s needed for them to live their life,” she said, her voice shaking. “As a Republican, I am disappointed in my party and I’m very disappointed in you because you do have the power to call the House back.… I am begging you to pass this legislation. My kids could die.”

In response, the speaker placed the blame for the ongoing government shutdown on Democrats: “Republicans are the ones delivering for you,” he assured her, whereas, “Democrats are the ones preventing you from getting the check.”

Pat, a Democrat from New York, called in and criticized the ongoing shutdown and Trump’s so-called “one, big, beautiful” tax and spending plan. She also asked about “the war being caused here in America,” with Trump deploying troops to American cities, using them as “war zones,” and telling “the military to shoot Americans.”

Johnson replied that he has “no idea” where the idea that Trump “wants to have a war on American citizens” comes from. (In a speech to military leaders last month, Trump called American cities “training grounds for our military.”)

Johnson insisted that, after the federal takeover of D.C., “everybody is smiling here. The sun is shining again.” A subsequent caller, a Colorado Democrat named Sam, took issue with that remark: “Hearing you say that everyone is smiling in the cities where troops, our National Guard, has been rolled into feels dystopian and insane,” Sam said.

Collin, a Republican in Texas, said he doesn’t have health insurance and pays out-of-pocket, asking, “What is the plan to fix Obamacare?” Johnson provided little more than the president’s notorious promise of “concepts of a plan”: Republicans, the speaker said, “have a lot of ideas to fix it.”

Prodding Johnson for something less vacuous, C-SPAN host Mimi Gergees asked, “Is there a plan that we can read and find out more about?” to which Johnson gave a similarly vapid response: Republicans “have been producing plans over the last few years” and “are setting up the conditions right now to do that.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a witch hunt of 300 of his own employees to suppress any statements about Charlie Kirk he didn’t like. 

The Washington Post has reported that 128 military members and 158 nonuniformed personnel—including 27 Defense Department civilians— have been “aggressively hunted” since Kirk’s assassination on September 10. Two of the nonuniformed were “removed from employment,” and three service members received “nonjudicial punishment.” Five former DOD employees have also been placed under investigation.

These free speech restrictions align with the administration’s broader rhetoric that anyone who acknowledges the often racist and hateful things Kirk said is anti-American. They also feed into the frantic, paranoid mania that the high-strung Hegseth is reportedly experiencing.   

“We WILL NOT tolerate those who celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American at the Department of War,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X in September. “It’s a violation of the oath, it’s conduct unbecoming, it’s a betrayal of the Americans they’ve sworn to protect & dangerously incompatible with military service.”

The Post also reported that Hegseth last year made light of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband being beaten with a hammer in 2022. Hegseth says the situations are not comparable. 

The man who endlessly laments the so-called “war on warriors” is now trying (and mostly failing) to punish those warriors for offering their opinions on the killing of a public figure. Meanwhile, the president demonizes the entire political left wing for doing the same thing. This administration has no right to speak on free speech. 

Members of the Justice Department team prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey are so green that they don’t actually know what they’re supposed to do with the case.

The former FBI chief was charged last month with lying to Congress regarding his testimony to Senator Ted Cruz in a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Comey has maintained his innocence and denied any wrongdoing. He could face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted.

Going against the grain of official statements by FBI leadership, Donald Trump has all but admitted that he was behind Comey’s indictment. But in order to make the case happen, certain people needed to be pushed out of the way and replaced. That included the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, whose replacement was handpicked by the president himself: White House aide Lindsey Halligan.

Ignoring protocol, Halligan has moved full steam ahead on prosecutions under the banner of Trump’s approval, despite the fact that she still needs to be confirmed by the Senate. (In fact, Trump has just two Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys in place.)

Halligan’s team is even less familiar with the former FBI director’s case. Halligan was reportedly “silent” during court proceedings Wednesday, while the two attorneys she recruited from the Eastern District of North Carolina agreed to a timeline on Comey’s terms. Their rationale, as recalled by MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, was telling.

“Why? ‘Because we’re trying to give the defendant all the time he needs to prepare for trial,’” Rubin told the network Wednesday night, speaking from the perspective of Halligan’s team. “But also there’s a substantial amount of discovery in this case, your honor, including classified materials.”

“That’s a very, very nice, thinly disguised way of saying, ‘We’re brand new to this and we got to get our arms around it, too, because guess what? We’re not the ones who investigated this case. We’re not the ones who charged this case,’” Rubin continued. “‘And we got to learn what it is that we’re supposed to do here by some point in January.’”

Comey, who worked as a longtime federal prosecutor and even served as the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the office prosecuting him now, has already challenged Halligan’s appointment.

“If Halligan was named as an interim U.S. attorney, Comey has an argument that she is not legally serving because the law does not permit successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys by the attorney general,” Nina Mendelson, professor of law at University of Michigan, told CNN.

President Donald Trump got caught trying to make the peace deal between Israel and Hamas all about him.

During a roundtable discussion Wednesday with right-wing influencers to discuss antifascist resistance to Trump’s reign, Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to pass a note to the president. 

The Daily Beast reported that Trump appeared to read the note before motioning Rubio over. The secretary whispered in the president’s ear and then returned to his seat. Trump answered a few more questions, before informing the pitiable right-wing shills he’d assembled to discuss antifa that he had to go “solve some problems in the Middle East.” Rubio took remaining questions on his behalf.

Evan Vucci, AP’s chief photographer in Washington, snapped a photograph of the note and posted it on X. “Very close. We need you to approve a Truth Social post so you can announce deal first,” the note said. 

Two hours later, after a lengthy call with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and nepo-hire Jared Kushner to review his social media post, Trump announced a deal between Israel and Hamas.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!” he wrote on Truth Social. 

Per the terms of the deal, all remaining hostages will be released from Gaza, and scores of Palestinians may be released from Israeli prisons. Israel is reportedly in talks to release as many as 2,000 prisoners. 

It seems clear that Trump wants to be the savior of the Middle East. His 20-point peace plan places himself in charge of the so-called “Board of Peace” that will oversee Gaza’s “redevelopment” and governance. Trump’s group would theoretically run things until the Palestinian Authority implements its own reform plan that satisfies Trump’s standards and “is conducive to attracting investment.” 

It’s more clear than ever that in Trump’s White House, a peace deal is indistinguishable from a P.R. stunt, or a power grab. Trump’s announcement came just two days before this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient will be revealed—an honor for which Trump has fiercely lobbied, though still could never deserve.  

A Chicago pastor is suing the Trump administration after ICE agents shot him in the head with pepper balls. 

Last month, Reverend David Black, the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was shot right in the face with a pepper ball by an ICE agent standing on a rooftop above him while he was protesting at the Broadview ICE facility. Black can be seen with his arms spread wide, praying at the masked, armed agents above him, before being shot in the head at least twice and falling to his knees. Black said he could hear ICE laughing at him when it happened.  

The video has now gone viral. 

“I invited them to repentance,” Black told Religion News Service. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

The lawsuit hinges on ICE infringing upon protesters’ First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and religion, as agents have displayed “a pattern of extreme brutality” aimed to “silence the press and civilians.”

Black is not the only clergy member involved in the lawsuit. Unitarian minister Beth Johnson was “fired upon without warning or justification as she and other protesters and clergy members stood on the sidewalk singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ and other traditional songs of protest,” according to the lawsuit. United Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was also shot at with pepper balls. 

It’s obvious in the video that Black—standing out among the crowd in his preacher’s garb—was absolutely a target, and it’s likely that the other faith leaders can say the same. 

The Trump administration accuses Black of trying to “dictate crowd-control policy in ways that would tie the hands of federal law enforcement officers,” while online MAGA has dismissed him as “antifa” for his vocal support of equal rights in Chicago. 

Donald Trump’s reckless social media use could imperil his administration’s already flimsy case against James Comey, the former FBI director and enemy of Trump who was indicted last month on evidently politically motivated charges.

On Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal revealed a striking detail about the president’s September 20 Truth Social post ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to make haste in prosecuting Comey and other MAGA enemies, i.e., Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

As many suspected, that message was actually meant to be sent privately to the attorney general.

“Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly,” the Journal reports, “and was surprised to learn it was public.” Chagrined, the attorney general called the White House, and Trump provided a balm in a subsequent post praising Bondi.

“The misfire provided a window into how, through command and chaos, Trump has executed a wholesale transformation of the Justice Department,” the Journal reports. It also raises a host of legal troubles for the department’s case against Comey.

As former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki following the revelation, this could pose “a big problem, legally and substantively” for Trump and the DOJ, giving Comey and the others mentioned in the message “viable motions to dismiss indictments.”

Comey’s attorney is reportedly looking to dismiss the case for “vindictive prosecution.” His trial is set for January, but before that, he can file a request to dismiss charges, on the ground that they were brought due to animus rather than legitimate legal reasons. As CNN’s Aaron Blake noted, if the Journal’s reporting is accurate, “it’s not inconceivable that an errant DM from Trump could be a big reason why Comey’s case is dismissed for vindictive prosecution.”

Though motions for vindictive prosecution are rarely successful, Bharara noted that Comey already has a better-than-average case for one, given Trump’s long record of public animosity toward him. What’s more, Bharara notes that the Journal’s reporting strongly suggests that additional communications between Trump and DOJ officials have taken place, which could help further determine the vindictiveness of the prosecution.

If the defense team acquires such messages in discovery, “that’s very, very bad for the prosecution,” he observed. Even worse would be if messages were deleted, which could potentially lead to an “adverse inference,” or the assumption that destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to whoever destroyed it.

Further, Bharara said, “There is an argument that those communications and the destruction thereof by themselves are a basis to dismiss an indictment.”