BS BULLETIN
- Ilhan Omar staffer Briana Rose Lee declared, “You’ll never convince me that Luigi is a villain,” hours after Mangione pleaded guilty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
- Mangione told the judge: “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan. I knew what I was doing.”
- Democrat Ritchie Torres blasted the glorification: “Any civilization that lionizes a cold-blooded murderer has forfeited the right to call itself civilized.”
Luigi Mangione has now stood in federal court and admitted exactly what he did. Apparently, that still isn’t enough to make him the villain for a member of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s staff.
Briana Rose Lee, who identifies herself as working in operations for the Minnesota Democrat, ignited a fresh backlash Friday after Mangione pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from the December 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. “You’ll never convince me that Luigi is a villain while everyone in the Epstein files is roaming free,” Lee posted on X.
This wasn’t a case in which Mangione maintained his innocence while supporters debated disputed evidence. He confessed.
“On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan,” Mangione told the court Friday. “I knew what I was doing.”
The Justice Department says Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges resulting in death. He admitted traveling to New York, tracking Thompson and shooting the 50-year-old executive outside a Manhattan hotel. Thompson was a husband and father of two.
Lee nevertheless framed the issue by comparing Mangione with people associated with Jeffrey Epstein.
The reaction was swift. “Luigi changed nothing about our healthcare system. And he killed an innocent man,” one critic responded, according to Fox News. Another accused Lee of supporting “an assassin who murdered a Minnesota father in cold blood.” Thompson lived in the Minneapolis suburbs, just outside Omar’s congressional district.
And Lee wasn’t alone. Former Bernie Sanders presidential campaign press secretary Briahna Joy Gray attacked the characterization of Mangione as a killer without simultaneously blaming Thompson for deaths she attributes to the health insurance industry.
Gray wrote that describing Mangione as a “killer” without mentioning “the tens of thousands of deaths Brian Thompson was responsible for” amounted to “manufacturing consent for corporate genocide.”
That was too much even for Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York. “Luigi Mangione is a cold-blooded assassin who belongs in prison for the rest of his life,” Torres responded. “Any civilization that lionizes a cold-blooded murderer has forfeited the right to call itself civilized.”
Gray responded by calling Torres a “baby killing Zionist coward.”
So there we are.
A man admits stalking and shooting a father of two on a Manhattan sidewalk, and parts of the political Left are still debating whether calling him a villain is somehow unfair.
DBS WIRE SOURCES:
- Fox News — Ilhan Omar staffer shredded for downplaying healthcare CEO’s killing after Luigi Mangione guilty plea
- U.S. Department of Justice — Luigi Mangione pleads guilty in connection with murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson
- U.S. Department of Justice — Federal complaint detailing charges in Brian Thompson killing
