OAN Staff Abril Elfi
2:04 AM – Saturday, December 14, 2024

Daniel Penny, the former Marine who was acquitted in the killing of Jordan Neely, has joined President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance at the annual Army-Navy football game.

On Saturday, Penny was Vance’s personal guest to attend the match in the president-elect’s suite at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.

Other guests at the game included Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, Intelligence Director nominee Tulsi Gabbard, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Trump was spotted standing next to Vance waving to the crowd as it chanted “USA! USA!” and then saluting during the singing of the National Anthem. Penny was off to the side, sipping a beverage.

“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote on X Friday, also referring to far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage.”

Following a month-long trial stemming from his fatal encounter with Neely on an uptown F train in May 2023, jurors cleared Penny of criminally negligent homicide.

The verdict came days after prosecutors dropped a more serious manslaughter charge after the 12 jurors couldn’t agree on it.

Vance and many other conservative politicians have publicly praised the verdict, while criticizing Bragg for charging Penny with a crime.

However, many far-left politicians have condemned Neely’s death as an unnecessary act of vigilantism, including state Senator Jabari Brisport (D-N.Y), who claimed the 30-year-old homeless man was “lynched,” and Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), who claimed Neely was “murdered.”

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