Former CNN host Don Lemon, along with other local reporters, has been in an entrenched battle with a Minneapolis prosecutor claiming that journalists reporting on a protest at a church were part of the protest. They all vehemently deny the charges and have produced interviews and videos from that day to back up their legitimacy.
There's concern among the defendants that Justice Department lawyers may have misled the grand jury to secure the indictments against the journalists. Lemon and the other reporters, including targeted investigative reporter Georgia Fort, asked for access to the grand jury transcript to more closely examine what the grand jury was told and by whom.
The defendants allege that a Department of Homeland Security officer lied under oath in a statement to the judge in the case. They think that was then used to secure the indictment.
CNN reported that the judge presiding over the case has demanded the transcripts now, too. That judge intends to probe this week whether the Department of Homeland Security officer lied when he told the grand jury that he watched a video of the protest and saw the journalists protesting.
"On August 18, Minnesota federal Judge Laura Provinzino issued a short but extraordinary order demanding the Justice Department provide her a wide swath of grand jury materials related to Lemon and his co-defendants, including presentations made by prosecutors and case agents, and the totality of communications prosecutors had with grand jurors resulting in their indictments," said the report.
It's only the latest in a growing list of judges demanding grand jury information amid concerns about the DOJ's candor.
"Federal judges in Wyoming, Illinois and Virginia have either thrown out charges or seriously admonished federal prosecutors for missteps in front of the grand jury," said CNN. "The botched grand jury presentments have prompted a historical review of cases in Chicago and, in some courts, new rules requiring defendants to be notified when a grand jury declines to indict."
Tuesday is the deadline for the DOJ to hand over what prosecutors presented to the grand jury when they made the case in January and February. The judge mandated that the DOJ give "any introduction, legal instructions, witness testimony, closing arguments and answers to questions from grand jurors."
The legal teams for the journalists have fought for the grand jury details for weeks, asking that, at a bare minimum, they should be reviewed by the judge for "irregularities."
As a former federal judge told CNN, it's extremely rare for a defense attorney to demand the grand jury transcripts. It's "even more rare that judges grant the motions," the judge said. Yet, it keeps happening.
“There is a high bar to getting grand jury materials,” said Mark Wolf, a former Massachusetts District Court judge. “You have to have some direct or circumstantial evidence that there has been some defect in the grand jury proceeding.”
Provinzino explained in the ruling that she weighed both sides of the question and, after she finished reading through the documents, she would decide whether grounds existed to dismiss the case due to a “matter that occurred before the grand jury.”
