Why would the person who led the police to Luigi Mangione be eligible for a reward from the FBI?

Question

According to this news article, the FBI offered a $50,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest and conviction for the murder of Brian Thompson that would be paid out through the State Department's "Rewards for Justice" program.

But the program's website says that it only applies to four categories of activity that is harmful to national security:

• International terrorism or the financing of foreign terrorist organizations,
• Foreign interference in domestic elections,
• Malicious cyber activity, or
• Supporting the North Korean regime.

I don't see how the murder of Brian Thompson could possibly fall into any of these categories. It might conceivably be considered an act of domestic terrorism, but certainly not international terrorism. So how was the FBI legally authorized to offer a reward as part of this investigation?

Answer 1

The $50,000 reward was a result of the FBI adding the shooter to the Most Wanted List

Short Answer: It is common, particularly in cases of high-profile unsolved murders, for the FBI to offer rewards for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the individual(s) responsible under the heading "Seeking Information". Unlike the RFJ Program, this is not restricted to the four bullet points you list in your question. This allows the $50,000 reward to be paid if the tips contribute towards the arrest and (potential) conviction.

Longer answer: As you correctly identify in your question, the RFJ Program would not be suitable in this case as Luigi Mangione (unidentified at the time) did not commit any of the offences you listed. If you refer to the RFJ official X profile, you will see that they have posted nothing about the issue for this reason. In contrast, the FBI Most Wanted list has posted about it on their official X account, which is one of the places they publically announced the $50,000 reward. This will be issued independently of (and is unconnected to) the RFJ Program.

There seems to be a discrepancy in the reporting on this particular issue. Some outlets have got this correct and others (like the one you mention) have not.

If you refer to the screenshot below, the post by the FBI is titled "Seeking Information". This is a section on the FBI's Most Wanted website which requests information to identify perpetrators of offences of interest, including domestic offences. As Luigi Mangione had not been identified at the time of the post, the FBI offered a reward for information to help in their search for him.