Joseph Thomas Knott

Joseph Thomas Knott III (born July 25, 1951) is an American lawyer and Baptist lay leader. He served as an Assistant United States Attorney and sat on the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. He ran as the Republican nominee in the 2004 North Carolina Attorney General election but lost to Democrat incumbent Roy Cooper. Knott is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee.

Early life, family, and education Knott was born on July 25, 1951 in Raleigh, North Carolina. His grandfather, Joseph Thomas Knott Sr., served on the board of Wakelon High School in Zebulon, North Carolina.

He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with a bachelor of science degree in 1974. He was an Assistant United States Attorney for four years and spent two years as a criminal prosecutor. He is now in private practice with the law firm Ward and Smith and was previously a partner at the law firm Knott, Clark, Berger & Whitehurst. He backed out of a planned debate with Cooper, claiming that the debate would have overshadowed the attorney general candidate's forum.

In February 2017, he introduced a ban on university centers filing legal actions and, in September 2017, he voted to block the UNC Center for Civil Rights from doing litigation.

In 2019, Knott called for the immediate restoration of "Silent Sam", a Confederate monument on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that was toppled by protestors on August 20, 2018 and subsequently removed from the campus. In an op-ed that he wrote for The News & Observer, Knott referred to the protestors as "violent people" and a "mob."

Knott's term on the board of governors was completed in 2019. In an online meeting for the executive committee in 2022, Knott claimed that the Convention taking preventative steps to end sexual abuse, in order to protect women and children, would ruin the Baptist church. He also stated that women and children "are going to be victimized no matter how much", and said that he feared the Southern Baptist Convention would end if targeted by class-action lawsuits. One of his Knott's sons, Tucker Knott, worked as chief of staff to U.S. Congressman George Holding and Senator Ted Budd.