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A federal prosecutor who quit amid concerns over how the Trump administration was facing the investigation into Renee Nicole Comely’s killing is now representing journalist Don Lemon.

On Tuesday, Joseph H. Thompson entered a look of look for Lemon, a passe CNN anchor, in a case that accuses Lemon of violating the spiritual freedom of worshippers following his protection of protesters who interrupted services and products at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lemon faces charges introduced by the Trump administration in connection with his livestream of the notify, which targeted a pastor who demonstrators alleged labored for Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a time when federal law enforcement personnel had been clashing with protesters amid an immigration crackdown in the distance.

Thompson did not straight acknowledge to a question for comment about his representing Lemon.

Thompson recently quit the U.S. Criminal official’s Set up of enterprise for the District of Minnesota, the build of labor prosecuting Lemon, over moral concerns about the Trump administration’s facing of the lethal taking pictures of Comely, 37, who was killed by an ICE officer valid by intention of the federal surge into the Minneapolis region.

Sooner than he resigned, Thompson oversaw a winning federal fraud investigation that long predated the viral YouTube video by a conservative influencer that drew attention to the utter’s Somali population.

“It was an honor and privilege to lend a hand as an Assistant U.S. Criminal official in both the District of Minnesota and Northern District of Illinois,” he wrote Monday in a LinkedIn put up that launched a pivot for his career.

He acknowledged he was leaving the Justice Division after 17 years and launching a firm with passe Justice Division colleague Harry Jacobs.

“Thompson Jacobs is a boutique law firm centered on white-collar protection, world investigations, advanced industrial litigation, and crisis management,” Thompson wrote. “We’re going to be in a position to also offer anti-corruption and compliance services and products to private and public sector entities searching to mitigate and decrease fraud, atomize, and abuse.”

The Justice Division did not straight acknowledge to a question for comment Tuesday evening.

Lemon was masking the notify on Jan. 18. “I went there to story and doc and chronicle,” he told Jimmy Kimmel last week. “There might well be a distinction between a protester and a journalist.”

The federal authorities cited the Freedom of In discovering entry to to Sanatorium Entrances (FACE) Act to elaborate the arrests of protesters who had been demonstrate that day. It prohibits the use of power or intimidation in opposition to somebody making an are attempting to rating valid of entry to reproductive services and products, but it also comprises provisions that quilt homes of cherish.

Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump administration’s top civil rights legitimate in the Justice Division, conceded weeks ago that the use of the statute in opposition to protesters at a church and journalists masking them would lack historical precedent.

“In all these years up except I was the assistant licensed official in type for civil rights, nobody ever susceptible that homes of cherish fragment to prosecute protesters or criminals blockading rating valid of entry to to a dwelling of cherish, so we’ve started to deal with out that,” Dhillon acknowledged in a video.

President Donald Trump beforehand pardoned a form of anti-abortion protesters prosecuted below the FACE Act, and federal prosecutors pushed aside other pending cases.

A Justice Division memo issued days after Trump was inaugurated last year acknowledged FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will probably be permitted handiest in unparalleled circumstances.

A federal magistrate select beforehand rejected a prison criticism in opposition to Lemon. A supply accustomed to the matter described Criminal official Same outdated Pam Bondi as “mad” by the resolution.

Her Justice Division continued to press the matter, and a wide jury returned an indictment charging Lemon and others with conspiracy in opposition to the rights of non secular freedom at a build of cherish and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the declare of the valid of non secular freedom at a build of cherish.

Lemon was in Beverly Hills, California, masking the bustle-as a lot as the Grammy Awards uninteresting last month when he was arrested and then released that afternoon. He told Kimmel that he had supplied to expose himself in but that he believes federal brokers’ exciting him was an strive to “embarrass” him.

Lemon’s arraignment and initial look are scheduled for Friday afternoon. One other of his lawyers has acknowledged he plans to plead not guilty.