MINNEAPOLIS — Attorneys for Twin Cities journalist Georgia Fort asked a judge on Thursday to throw out federal charges against her over an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church, arguing the indictment violates her First Amendment free speech rights among other things.

Fort was indicted alongside former CNN host Don Lemon and several protesters on charges that they conspired against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship and injured, intimidated or interfered with the exercise of religious freedom at a place of worship.

The Justice Department has portrayed the case as an organized effort put on by violent agitators, and pledged to quickly investigate after videos of the Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church circulated online. More than 30 people were charged.

Fort’s attorneys in the new filings describe the indictment as failing “on every level” to show that Fort “joined any conspiracy, much less one intended to ‘oppress, threaten and intimidate’ the parishioners of Cities Church.”

“The law is clear that a journalist does not aid and abet or conspire with protesters simply by covering them,” Fort’s attorneys stated.

In asking for the case to be tossed, Fort’s attorneys argued the charges against her werealso part of a broader pattern of the Trump administration’s vindictive prosecution against her and the president’s political opponents.

The Trump administration publicly pledged to quickly pursue charges after videos showing the demonstration circulated online. Following the arrest of Lemon, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi proclaimed in a video that: “We are coming after you if you participated in that,” and dismissed Lemon’s role as a reporter during the matter. Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s civil rights division, promised to pursue the case “to the ends of the earth.”

Since those public demands, the federal case against the more than two dozen protesters has been riddled with slip-ups. A magistrate judge initially refused to sign warrants for five of the eight people whom the U.S. wanted to arrest for participating in the church demonstration. Court records later revealed that another magistrate judge had also rejected several search warrants sought by the federal government after determining they didn’t have probable cause.

Prosecutors later dropped charges against a woman they accused of taking part in the protest after her attorney said she was misidentified by the U.S. government and never attended the demonstration.

Attorneys for the Justice Department said they’re continuing to aggressively pursue the case, recently signaling that investigators are interviewing additional witnesses and gathering a trove of evidence.

Several of the protesters also charged in the demonstration raised similar arguments as Fort, stating the accusations in the indictment do not rise to the level of crimes alleged against them by the Justice Department.

“Nowhere in those 19 pages does the indictment allege a single fact that any defendant used physical force against another person, issued a threat of violence to anyone, or fully blocked ingress to or egress from the church, as is required by the charged statutes,” the motion said.

Fort’s attorneys also argued extensively that pursuing a conviction against her would run afoul of her First Amendment right to free speech as a journalist. Her attorneys argued that Fort’s role in the protest was to observe and document the anti-government protest, adamantly rejecting federal claims that she participated by chanting and using her camera as a weapon.

“If the First Amendment is to mean anything, it must halt the government’s prosecution against Fort for doing precisely what it protects: covering and reporting on newsworthy events,” the motion asks.

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