Courts and Law Enforcement

The DOJ filed a 144‑page omnibus opposition, authored by Sean Buckley, arguing the federal death‑penalty notice in the Luigi Mangione case should remain on the table and that defense claims about pretrial publicity and other challenges are premature and manageable under controlling precedent. Concurrent state suppression hearings before Judge Gregory Carro have played body‑cam and surveillance footage from Mangione’s Dec. 9, 2024 Altoona McDonald’s arrest and focused on contested evidence — including a 9mm handgun prosecutors say matches the murder weapon, a 3D‑printed receiver/silencer, a loaded magazine, a notebook with writings about targeting a health‑insurance executive, a fake ID and other items — which the defense seeks to exclude as the product of a warrantless search and pre‑Miranda questioning.

The CIA has publicly confirmed that 29‑year‑old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was evacuated to the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome and later granted asylum, previously worked with a CIA‑backed Afghan partner force — reporting identifies the specific unit as NDS‑03 (the so‑called "Zero Unit") based at Camp Gecko. Lakanwal is accused of an ambush near the Farragut Square/Farragut West Metro area that critically injured two West Virginia National Guard members (Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, who later died, and SSgt. Andrew Wolfe, who remains hospitalized), faces federal assault charges, and is the subject of an FBI probe being treated as a possible act of international terrorism.