Nearly a decade of President Donald Trump’s attacks on journalist Don Lemon have recoiled on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, as Lemon’s lawyers moved to throw out his criminal case.
Lemon was charged in January with two felony civil rights counts after he livestreamed an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest inside a St. Paul, Minnesota church. He has pleaded not guilty, according to CNN.
The motion, filed Friday in federal court in Minnesota, argues the prosecution was retaliation for journalism — not a legitimate law enforcement action. The case was personally managed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi before Trump fired her in April. It now belongs to Blanche.
“The record could not be more clear that Mr. Lemon has been a persistent target of President Trump’s ire before the events in Minnesota,” Lemon’s lawyers wrote in the motion, “and that the Justice Department acted on the President’s animus by filing unprecedented charges against a journalist for doing his job.”
Trump’s attacks on Lemon in the filing span nine years. He first called Lemon “the dumbest man on television” in a 2017 post.
“WHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG?” Trump asked on Truth Social after CNN fired Lemon in 2023.
When Lemon flew to Minneapolis in January 2026 to cover Operation Metro Surge — the Trump administration’s ICE crackdown that deployed more than 3,000 federal agents and left two people dead — the attacks took on new significance, the filing said.
The same day the government sought Lemon’s arrest warrant, Trump singled him out at a White House press conference, the filing said.
“And they have to be abused by guys like Don Lemon, who’s a, you know, loser, lightweight,” Trump said.
That same day, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly dismissed Lemon’s press credentials, the filing noted.
“I don’t care if you’re a failed CNN journalist, you have no right to do that in this country,” Bondi said.
Hours before the warrant was sought, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had posted on X that Trump “will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.”
Six minutes later, Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s civil rights chief, replied with two words.
“ON IT!”
When Lemon’s lawyers offered to arrange a voluntary surrender, the government instead tracked him to a Los Angeles hotel where he was covering the Grammy Awards and arrested him at midnight, according to the filing. He was held for 14 hours before seeing a judge.
“When life gives you lemons…” the White House posted on X to mark the occasion.
The motion also accuses the government’s case agent of making false sworn statements — falsely claiming Lemon had been “chanting with agitators” inside the church, the filing said.
Bondi was fired April 2. Blanche — Trump’s former personal defense lawyer — stepped in and inherited the case she had personally championed.
“The law has long recognized that bearing witness is not the same as taking part,” Lemon’s lawyers wrote in the filing.
“The government should not be permitted to use criminal prosecutions to chill journalism disfavored by the President,” his lawyers wrote.
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