Former CNN host Don Lemon has hired a former federal prosecutor to defend him against charges related to the anti-ICE activist invasion of Cities Church last month.

Joseph Thompson not only served as a federal prosecutor, but Thompson previously worked out of the same prosecutor’s office in Minnesota that charged Lemon. Thompson will join Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lead attorney, in the case to defend the independent journalist, according to The New York Times.

Thompson recently left the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota. He resigned from the office last month in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration policy and crackdown on illegal aliens in Minneapolis.

Lemon filmed as protesters invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18. Prior to the event, Lemon joined the activists in a parking lot and appeared to intentionally keep details of the planned operation hidden from his audience as he talked to protesters.

During his livestream of the protesters’ early gathering, Lemon “stepped away momentarily so his mic would not accidentally divulge certain portions of the planning session,” prosecutors said in an indictment.

Lemon was arrested last month and charged with conspiracy to violate the right of religious freedom at a house of worship and violations of the FACE Act, which bans disruption of religious services.

During his livestream, Lemon defended the protesters as they stormed into Cities Church and disrupted the service to the extent that parishioners opted to leave rather than wait for order to be restored. The ex-CNN host claimed that the actions of the protesters who stormed church property to disrupt the service are protected under the Constitution.

“There is nothing in the Constitution that tells you what time you can protest. You can protest at any time. That’s the whole point of it, to disrupt, to make uncomfortable. And that’s what they’re doing,” Lemon said during his livestream. “When you see how … uncomfortably and harsh people are being treated on the streets, you have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable. That is what this country is about.”

Lemon blamed the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis for the activist operation.

“This is the beginning of what’s going to happen here. When you violate people’s due process, when you pull people off the street, you start dragging them and hurting them and not abiding by the Constitution – when you start doing all of that, people get upset and angry,” Lemon said.

The protest was organized and promoted by the Racial Justice Network and Black Lives Matter Minnesota. Cities Church was targeted by the activists because, activist leader Nekima Levy-Armstrong claimed, one of its pastors works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“They cannot pretend to be a house of God while harboring someone who is directing ICE agents to wreak havoc upon our community,” Levy-Armstrong told Lemon. “I am a reverend on top of being a lawyer and an activist, so I come here in the power of the almighty God for righteousness, truth, and justice.”

On Lemon’s stream of the protest, Levy-Armstrong led dozens of protesters into the church during services, crowding the aisle and chanting slogans such as “justice for Renee Good,” “hands up, don’t shoot,” and “ICE out of Minnesota.”

The Trump administration is set this week to repeal the Obama-era “endangerment finding” on which federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions rest.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin are set to formalize a new rule rescinding the emissions ruling in an event scheduled for Thursday.

“This will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations. The bulk of the savings will stem from reduced costs for new vehicles, with the EPA projecting average per vehicle savings of more than $2,400 for popular light-duty cars, SUVs, and trucks,” said Leavitt.

Environmental groups have already promised to explore lawsuits as soon as the final rule is signed.

“Lee Zeldin and Donald Trump plan to toss out the endangerment finding on blatantly specious legal grounds, attempting to wish away the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 holding in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act does cover greenhouse gas pollution,” the Sierra Club said in a press release. “While this rule specifically concerns greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, EPA has made clear that it will do the same for other major sources of climate pollution like power plants.”

EPA Administrator Zeldin began the move to roll back the finding in July, saying that the deregulatory effort was “driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion.”

The new rule will “repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice and giving Americans the ability to purchase a safe and affordable car for their family while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver,” the agency said at the time.

The “endangerment finding” was drawn up in 2009 by the EPA under former President Barack Obama. The finding is not a regulation, but a legal determination that greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are a threat to public health and should be regulated. The finding became the basis for a wave of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions that covered power plants, engines, and other common greenhouse gas emitters.

The final rule would rescind emissions standards on motor vehicles and associated compliance programs. It would also remove some mandatory reporting requirements for industries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The rule would not impact regulations on emissions from power plants, but it would lay the groundwork for future rollbacks of those regulations, officials told WSJ.

This move is just one in an ongoing deregulatory effort by the Trump administration as it relates to alleged climate change. In 2025, President Trump and Congress ended the federal electric vehicle tax credit with the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” repealing provisions that had been expanded under former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Additionally, EPA head Zeldin announced in early 2025 that his agency was poised to take dozens of deregulatory actions that would “roll back trillions in regulatory costs and hidden ‘taxes’ on U.S. families,” according to an EPA press release.