Judge slams Trump's DOJ for making a rookie error in Minnesota protester probe

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Raw Story

March 21, 2026 9:40PM ET


A federal judge slammed President Donald Trump's Department of Justice during a recent court order after the agency admitted to making a rookie mistake in the probe of protesters who attended a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to a new report.

In January, protesters attended a service at City Church in St. Paul, where the pastor, Dave Easterwood, also serves as a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in the state. Following the protest, the Department of Justice charged 39 people, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, with conspiring to violate religious freedoms and interfering with the exercise of religious freedoms.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Trump's DOJ dropped charges against one of the protesters "in an apparent case of mistaken identity," a move that Judge Douglas L. Micko in the District of Minnesota argued could have been avoided if the DOJ adhered to some rudimentary steps.

“Here we are, months into a case that the government had an intense appetite to initiate, but cannot seem to keep up the pace when it comes to discovery obligations,” Micko wrote. “This is unacceptable.”

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-doj-2676540845/

---

From the NYT -

Charges against Heather Danae Lewis, 50, were dismissed with prejudice, which means the government cannot charge her again.

[onenote]

1. As usual, RawStory mangles the actual facts it is reporting

Specifically, RawStory conflates two separate issues. First is the dismissal of charges against Heather Lewis. On Friday, the government filed a short motion and proposed order to dismiss with prejudice the charges against Lewis. Presumably, the court will grant that motion. But contrary to what RawStory would have you believe, the court hasn't yet done so and neither the motion to dismiss nor the proposed order give any reason for why the government is dismissing the charges. It is likely that the reason is the one given by Lewis' attorney in an interview -- namely that it was a case of mistaken identity. But the court hasn't commented on those reasons, let alone "slammed" the government for a "rookie mistake."

The second issue involves a discovery dispute between the government and the plaintiffs. The statement quoted in the RawStory is from the order in the discovery dispute and is unrelated to the dismissal of charges against Lewis. While the court was critical of the government's delay in providing discovery, it did not attribute the delay to any "rookie mistake" and, ultimately, gave the government a short extension -- one month, rather than the three months that the government sought -- to provide the defendants with discovery material.

One can generally assume that RawStory, in its pursuit of clicks, will overhype a story that was notable without the hype.

Link to Discovery/Scheduling Order: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102.411.0.pdf

Link to Government motion to dismiss case against Heather Lewis https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102.412.0.pdf

Link to government's proposed order dismissing case against Heather Lewis.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102/gov.uscourts.mnd.231102.412.1.pdf

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I linked to the NYT article that they are citing

Did you read it?

I only have a couple of gift articles left this month and it's not on msn to make it a no-paywall.

The Guardian just published an article about the same thing about an hour ago basically saying the same thing - Charges dropped against woman in anti-ICE church protest over mistaken identity

[onenote]

4. Yes I read it. And the articles attribute the reasoning for the dismissal to Lewis's lawyer, not the court.

I posted links to the relevant court filings. Where does the court "slam" the prosecution for a "rookie mistake" in charging Lewis? Indeed, where does either the court or the government discuss the reasons for the dismissal. As I said, it probably is because it was a case of mistaken identity, but RawStory would have one believe the court addressed that issue and "slammed" the government for it. They didn't.

As I said, and if you can show me otherwise, I'll retract -- RawStory quoted language from the court's order on discovery and sought to make it look like that language was related to the dismissal of charges against Lewis. The Guardian article makes clear that the quoted language relates to the discovery dispute.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. "Where does the court "slam" the prosecution for a "rookie mistake" in charging Lewis?"

The article has this -

A federal judge slammed President Donald Trump's Department of Justice

where they quote this from Judge Douglas L. Micko -

“Here we are, months into a case that the government had an intense appetite to initiate, but cannot seem to keep up the pace when it comes to discovery obligations,” Micko wrote. “This is unacceptable.”

The Guardian article quotes the same remarks from the judge -

(snip)

The Trump administration’s justice department has touted the prosecution. But on Friday, a magistrate judge overseeing the initial stages of the case chided the justice department for being slow to turn over discovery.

“Here we are, months into a case that the government had an intense appetite to initiate, but cannot seem to keep up the pace when it comes to discovery obligations,” Douglas Micko, the magistrate judge, wrote. “This is unacceptable.”

Maybe it's due to a learned habit of dealing with litigation, to always go with the "contrarian" view, but instead of parachuting in to pick apart what should be an obvious "2 + 2 = 4" reasoning when this administration's DOJ has a HISTORY of thousands of cases that have been presented with issues like this or worse, that have either been thrown out by the courts or withdrawn, it would perhaps be better for you to "add value" to your posts by actually looking for and posting news OPs about new and ongoing litigation like some of the other DU lawyers do, rather than attacking the sources of such stories.

[onenote]

6. I suggest you read the orders I posted.

The language is in the order on discovery. It has zero to do with the dismissal of the indictment against Lewis. Apparently, RawStory, which sought to mislead folks into thinking it did, succeeded.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. I suggest you look at the exasperated remarks by dozens of judges

about the sloppy cases that this administration's DOJ has presented and this is just another one to add to the pile.

Context is the key, whether it was a "Pirro Special" or any number of botched actions by the selected prosecutors - particularly when you have what was made into a "high profile" case (notably due to the involvement of Don Lemon), that DHS & DOJ loudly bragged about. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" for criminal cases, remember? And if they fuck that up, whether due to "mistaken identity" and/or causing the judge heartburn with respect to discovery, then it behooves that they withdraw the case.

Shortly before the dismissal notice was filed, the judge overseeing the case, Douglas L. Micko, chided the government in an order issued on Friday, saying prosecutors were moving too slowly in sharing evidence from the case with defense lawyers.

-meaning they fucked up, probably knew they did with the "mistaken identity", and thus the slow-mo production issues.

[onenote]

8. All I did was point out another example of RawStory getting the story wrong

Not sure why you seem so upset about that. My criticism is of RawStory, not you.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. They are "getting to the main idea"

without needing to get into the weeds.

Most of what Raw Story does is -

1.) Summarize media stories (and in many cases, media that is PAY WALLED that the average person can't access)
2.) Publish reports on "social media" activity, since most if not all "politicians" are now using that for "communications" rather than doing pressers
3.) Have their reporters actually WATCH hearings, political broadcast shows/podcasts, to summarize what happened - something that many of the "mainstream media" won't even bother to do because they feel they have "bigger fish to fry" with endless reporting on Taylor Swift or, at least at moment, how some 2 million "brackets were broken" over the weekend associated with "March Madness".

There are things called "persistent patterns" that have emerged out of DOJ and this fits one to a "T".

If a referenced article is still within the LBN 12 hour criteria that is cited by them, I usually go right to that and will post that. Otherwise, RS gives a heads up - often for published stories that were SUPPRESSED by the original sources due to that original source using up valuable space for multiple articles representing different takes on ONE story (and even padding their pages with the same identical story in duplicate or triplicate with different fonts), and then finally bubbling up other stories, hours or even days later.

[onenote]

10. I guess i'm more interested in truthful reporting.

RawStory suggested that the court slammed the DOJ for indicting the wrong person, 'a rookie mistake', backing up that claim with a quote from an order that had absolutely nothing to do with the dismissal of the indictment, but was related to a discovery dispute in which the court found that the government's delay in providing discovery was unacceptable -- but then gave the government a 30 day extension and extended the speedy trial deadline over the objection of the defendants.

And the problem with RawStory is that its summaries of other news stories often are inaccurate -- as was the case in this instance where the stories it summarized made clear the "unacceptable" quote came from the order on the discovery issue.

[FakeNoose]

2. Maybe the rookie errors are because the DoJ lawyers are now being hired right out of college?

No experience necessary ... work for Dept. of Justice and help destroy our legal system!