Don Lemon wants a federal judge to make his legal problems disappear, filing motions Friday to dismiss the criminal case against him over the January, anti-ICE mob disruption at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota
The former CNN anchor, now a left-wing YouTube activist with a camera, filed three motions attacking the case on separate grounds. One accuses the Justice Department of vindictive prosecution, another argues that Lemon's actions were protected by the First Amendment, and a third claims prosecutors misapplied the two criminal statutes underlying the charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Federal prosecutors charged Lemon with conspiring to interfere with religious rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which also protects houses of worship. The charges stem from the Jan. 18 invasion in which anti-ICE agitators stormed Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, and shut down a Sunday service, terrifying families and children in the pews.
Lemon livestreamed the whole thing for his online show, cheerfully narrating as the mob overran the church. Prosecutors have called it a "takeover-style attack." Lemon, predictably, insists he was just an innocent journalist documenting events.
His lawyers, led by Abbe Lowell, the well-connected D.C. defense attorney whose past clients include Hunter Biden, argue that the Justice Department targeted Lemon because of his reporting and Trump's years of public criticism of him. Being insulted by a president, apparently, is now a legal defense.
Lowell lays it out in the 29-page motion:
“The government should not be permitted to use criminal prosecutions to chill journalism disfavored by the President. The targeting of Mr. Lemon for criticism even before the Minnesota protests, and then the attacks starting on and continuing after, provide more than sufficient grounds to conclude the prosecution of Mr. Lemon is vindictive.”
Bold words about a man on his own livestream at the scene of a church invasion.
The motion catalogs Trump's repeated insults toward Lemon, "loser," "lightweight," "sleazebag," as evidence of prosecutorial animus, and leans on comments from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who put Lemon "on notice" and called out his "pseudo journalism." Dhillon was right. Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi made clear the DOJ was "coming after" everyone who participated, and correctly noted that being a "failed CNN journalist" does not give anyone the right to invade a house of worship.
Lemon's attorneys make much of the winding road prosecutors took to secure the charges. A magistrate judge initially declined to approve an arrest warrant, the government sought expedited review from the chief judge, and then petitioned the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. When those efforts stalled, prosecutors took the case to a grand jury and obtained an indictment.
The motion also complains that federal agents arrested Lemon around midnight at a Los Angeles hotel rather than allowing a genteel self-surrender. His lawyers call it humiliating. Others might call it accountability.
"Instead of arranging the normal self-surrender after a charge would be filed, in what can only be described as an effort to punish and humiliate Mr. Lemon, the government ignored the request to arrange an orderly surrender and chose to deputize agents to his Los Angeles hotel."
His lawyers also accuse a federal agent of lying in sworn affidavits, claiming Lemon joined in chanting and blocked parishioners from moving freely. Lemon's team counters that video shows him interviewing protesters, church members, and the pastor, insisting he was "not a part of the activists." Of course he wasn't. He was just there with a camera, cheering them on to his YouTube audience.
The St. Paul City Attorney declined in June to bring state charges against the church protesters, citing insufficient evidence, drawing sharp criticism from Cities Church pastor Jonathan Parnell, who said the ruling effectively told agitators it was "perfectly fine" to invade any house of worship and call it a protest.
The Justice Department has no such squeamishness. It did not immediately respond publicly to Friday's motions, but at least 39 people still face federal charges in connection with the January incident.
New: Trump DOJ Drops the Hammer on Anti-ICE Activists Who Invaded Minnesota Church
Lemon faces a steep legal climb, and his own lawyers know it. The motion concedes that charging decisions come with a presumption of regularity and that a defendant must produce objective evidence, not just a collection of mean tweets, showing prosecutors acted to punish the exercise of a protected right.
Trump's insults and the White House's gleeful "When life gives you lemons" post may give Lemon's lawyers something to work with on motive. But presidential trash talk doesn't erase what's on tape. The real question is what Lemon was actually doing inside that church, and the answer isn't going to come from a motion full of social media screenshots.
Lemon wants the indictment tossed with prejudice, meaning he could never be recharged. If the judge won't go that far, he's asking for discovery and an evidentiary hearing to dig into the DOJ's motivations. The court will ultimately have to decide whether Lemon has built a genuine vindictive prosecution case or simply assembled a greatest-hits reel of every unkind thing a Trump official ever said about him. Given what happened inside that church, the latter seems more likely.
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