Former federal prosecutor Joe Thompson joins Don Lemon's defense team in church protest case

Sarah Nelson, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Feb 10, 2026

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Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon will be represented by Minnesota’s former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson in a federal criminal case tied to a demonstration at a St. Paul church last month.

Thompson notified the court on Tuesday about joining Lemon’s defense team alongside his initial lawyer, Abbe Lowell. The announcement comes weeks after the departure of Thompson and other senior leaders at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota – the same office that brought charges against Lemon – over disagreements about directives from the Justice Department surrounding the immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Since the first wave of resignations, a total of 14 people have left or intend to leave the office.

The hire also comes a day after Thompson announced his launch of the private practice Thompson Jacobs PLLC with a former U.S. Attorney’s Office colleague, Harry Jacobs. The firm focuses on “white-collar defense, international investigations, complex commercial litigation and crisis management.”

Lemon is among nine people charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy against religious freedom following the disruption at Cities Church by those protesting the Department of Homeland Security’s wave of federal agents in Minnesota. Lemon was reporting at the church as protesters disrupted the Sunday service after the group determined that one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is the acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in St. Paul.

Twin Cities independent journalist Georgia Fort, who also was reporting at the demonstration, has been charged as well.

Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, previously called Lemon’s arrest a “stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job” and said he will “call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”

A federal magistrate judge at first refused to issue warrants for five of the eight people whom the U.S. government wanted to arrest in connection to the demonstration. The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked for a review of the denial. Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, assigned to the review, called the request “unheard of” in the state’s federal court system in a letter to the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

“If the government does not like the magistrate judge’s decision” it could improve the warrant or gather a federal grand jury to secure an indictment, the letter said. On Jan. 30, Lemon and Fort were arrested and charged through a grand jury indictment.

Lemon, along with four others charged in the indictment, are scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon in St. Paul.