Don Lemon has lawyered up, and he’s turning to a former insider for support.

The Independent journalist and former CNN anchor has hired Joseph H. Thompson—the veteran federal prosecutor who abruptly quit the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota last month over how the Justice Department handled the city’s immigration crackdown.​

According to the New York Times, Thompson spent nearly 17 years in the Minnesota office and was its deputy chief before he, along with several other colleagues, stepped down.

The exit was over a clash with political appointees regarding an investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an immigration officer in Minneapolis.

Thompson and other prosecutors wanted to investigate whether that shooting was legally justified, but Washington had a different approach. Senior department leaders overruled Thompson and instead pushed them to focus on the victim’s partner and possible ties to anti-ICE activists.

Now Thompson is on the other side, joining high-profile defense lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent Lemon in a federal case brought by his former office. He's also partnered with a former fellow federal colleague and quietly opened his own practice.

Lemon is one of nine people charged over a Jan. 18 protest that disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul. The church was targeted after one of its pastors, David Easterwood, was revealed to be a senior official working for ICE.

Prosecutors say the group conspired to interfere with worship and intimidate congregants, and are using a 1994 civil-rights law. The Times reports they were “charged with conspiring to violate religious freedoms at a house of worship, and with injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of religious freedoms at a place of worship.”

​An indictment also accused Lemon of standing “in close proximity” to the pastor to scare him and letting the pastor’s hand “graze” his own. Lemon says he was there as a journalist, live-streaming the incident and interviewing both worshippers and protesters as part of his job.

​The Justice Department’s aggressive approach has rattled current and former prosecutors, who see a pattern of punishing people viewed as opponents of the president.

​Lemon calls the charges “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.” Though with Thompson on board, working against his former colleagues and bosses, it’s clear this case has taken an even sharper turn.