STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Does President Joe Biden have the power to pardon Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson? No, that's not true: As of this writing, Mangione was jailed on state charges in Pennsylvania and was charged with murder by New York. The Constitution allows presidents to grant pardons only for federal crimes.
The claim originated in a post on X (archived here) on December 9, 2024. It said:
biden has the chance to pardon luigi mangione and it would be the funniest thing ever
Here is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Dec 10 13:42:43 2024 UTC)
In a news conference held December 9, 2024, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and law enforcement officials announced the forgery arrest of Luigi Mangione, 26.
Manhattan prosecutors filed paperwork on December 9, 2024, to charge Mangione with murder.
As of December 10, 2024, Biden appears to not have made any public comments about Mangione's arrest. A Google News search for the terms "Joe Biden" and Luigi Mangione (archived here) returned no pertinent results.
Regardless, Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution (archived here) limits a president's pardon powers to only federal crimes.
After the post that is the subject of this debunk, the same account added this comment (archived here) on December 9, 2024:
Before people start going off in the comments I KNOW ITS A STATE CRIME AND BIDEN COULDNT DO IT BUT ITS STILL FUNNY TO IMAGINE
For more Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving the shooting of United Healthcare's CEO, click here.
For more Lead Stories fact checks on claims involving presidential pardons, click here.
Updates:
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2024-12-11T00:13:35Z 2024-12-11T00:13:35Z Adds link for New York arrest warrant.
