Journalist Don Lemon is charged with federal civil rights crimes in anti-ICE church protest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Journalist Don Lemon has been charged with federal civil rights crimes in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

Listen as Inside Sources goes over the arrest of Lemon, plus a conversation on how the Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting death of Alex Pretti 👇

 

Lemon was arrested Thursday by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, his attorney Abbe Lowell said.

The veteran journalist is charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor. Another journalist and two protest participants were also arrested.

Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023, has said he has no affiliation to the organization that went into the church and that he was there as a journalist chronicling protesters.

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Lowell said in a statement earlier Friday. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media Friday morning confirming the arrest of Lemon and the others who were present during the protest.

“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Bondi said.

‘Keep trying’

Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for President Donald Trump. Yet during his online show from the church, he said repeatedly: “I’m not here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene before him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.

A magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the veteran journalist. Shortly after, he predicted on his show that the administration would try again.

“And guess what,” he said. “Here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Just do it. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Fort, an independent journalist, livestreamed the moments before her arrest Friday on Facebook Live.

“I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press because now the federal agents are at my door arresting me for filming the church protest a few weeks ago,” Fort said.

It was not immediately clear if Fort and the two other Minnesotans who were arrested have attorneys.

Discouraging scrutiny

The arrests brought sharp criticism from news media advocates and civil rights activists. The Rev. Al Sharpton said the Trump administration was taking a “sledge hammer” to “the knees of the First Amendment.”

Kelly McBride, a senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, said the arrests and the recent search of a Washington Post journalist’s home were intended to intimidate journalists documenting opposition to the president’s policies.

In an Instagram post, the National Association of Black Journalists said it was “outraged and deeply alarmed” by Lemon’s arrest. The group called it an effort to “criminalize and threaten press freedom under the guise of law enforcement.”

Crews is a leader of Black Lives Matter Minnesota who has led many protests and actions for racial justice, particularly following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in 2020.

After Trump administration officials said earlier this month that arrests would be coming in the church protest, Crews told The Associated Press there’s a “tradition” of Black activists and leaders being targeted or subjected to violence.

“Just as being a Black person, you always have to have that in mind,” Crews said.

Protesters charged previously

A prominent civil rights attorney and two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting the Cities Church service.

The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for Nekima Levy Armstrong, who was in the first group arrested, said the latest prosecutions “are beyond the pale.”
“Nonviolent protest is not a federal felony,” Kushner said.

Lundy is an intergovernmental affairs manager in the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and is married to St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie. Bowie and Moriarty could not be reached for comment.

Lemon briefly interviewed Lundy, who is also a candidate for state senate, as they gathered with protesters preparing to drive to the church.
“I feel like it’s important that if you’re going to be representing people in office that you are out here with the people,” he told Lemon, adding he believed in “direct action, certainly within the lines of the law.”

Church leaders praise arrests in protest

Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads ICE’s St. Paul field office.

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice acted swiftly to protect Cities Church so that we can continue to faithfully live out the church’s mission to worship Jesus and make him known,” lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said Friday in a statement.

“Make no mistake. Under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said in a video posted to social media on Friday. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”
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Associated Press reporters Dave Bauder and Aaron Morrison in New York City; Giovanna Dell’Orto, Tim Sullivan, Steve Karnowski and Jack Brook in Minneapolis; and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed.