Minnesota Federal Prosecutor Joins Don Lemon’s Defense Weeks After Quitting

A former federal prosecutor who recently resigned from the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office has joined Don Lemon’s defense team, court records show.

Joseph Thompson will represent Lemon alongside Abbe Lowell, a defense attorney who has represented prominent Democrats like New York Attorney General Letitia James and Hunter Biden, according to a Tuesday court filing.

Lemon was indicted in January under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) and Ku Klux Klan Acts for live-streaming himself alongside anti-ICE protesters disrupting a St. Paul, Minnesota church service. He was arrested in Los Angeles, California, though he defended his actions at the church as an “act of journalism.”

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote on X Jan. 18 that the First Amendment does not “protect your [Lemon’s] pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service.”

Thompson, who President Donald Trump at one point named acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, was known for his focus on fraud in the state. He resigned in January along with six other prosecutors, reportedly due to pressure to investigate the wife of Renee Good.

The day after Thompson’s resignation was reported, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that she fired the prosecutors.

“We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women in ICE. One of them was busy doing a photo shoot with the New York Times while ICE was out there risking their lives,” Bondi said Jan. 14 on Fox News. “So they came, they said, we want to resign, but we want to use our annual leave up until April, meaning they wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn’t want to support law enforcement.”