Below is a excellent analysis of the case by legal experts. It's very long but worth reading if you want to understand the legal issues here. They raise many pros and cons for each party to the case.
Unpacking the Don Lemon indictment, its factual allegations, the elements the government must prove to convict, and the potential defenses available to the accused.
www.lawfaremedia.org
Will Abbe Lowell & Joe Thompson run with this today?
"The defendants could also go one step further and argue that their charges are the result of an improper vindictive prosecution. Generally, and specifically in the Eighth Circuit, where this case was charged, a prosecution “
designed solely to punish a defendant for exercising a valid legal right” violates due process. This presents a heavy burden on the defense, which must show that the government brought the prosecution as a result of a “vindictive or improper motive.”
The protester defendants could allege the government has vindictively targeted them if they have a history of lawful protests against ICE operations in Minnesota. However, absent evidence such as statements by the Justice Department, the White House, or Trump reflecting an animus against these protestors divorced from any legitimate prosecutorial considerations, it will be a difficult defense to raise successfully.
For that reason, though, Lemon’s argument may be stronger. He could argue he has over the years exercised his First Amendment right to speak out about Trump, which has ultimately led to these charges. And he could strengthen his claim by pointing to Trump’s
longtime animus against him,
Trump’s reaction to his arrest (calling Lemon a “sleazebag,” “a washup,” and noting that the arrest is “the best thing that could have happened to [Lemon]”), the weakness of the evidence against him (as detailed below), and the
White House’s response on X to the arrest:
These motions are typically an uphill battle. Courts are often hesitant to impede upon the “
broad discretion to enforce the Nation’s criminal laws” held by “the Attorney General and the United States Attorneys.” That is because “the presumption of regularity” normally supports their prosecutorial decisions and, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts “presume that they have properly discharged their official duties.” The Trump administration’s abnormal efforts to investigate and/or prosecute defendants like
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and
some of the president’s perceived enemies, however, have called that presumption of regularity into question. Lowell, Lemon’s criminal defense attorney, has recently made these same arguments against the government in a separate troubling prosecution against New York’s attorney general,
Letitia James./
