Don Lemon, the prominent journalist and former CNN anchor, was arrested by federal agents Thursday in Los Angeles on charges that he violated a law while reporting on a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month.
The saga represents a startling, if not new, turn in the Trump administration’s attacks on reporters and protesters.
President Donald Trump’s administration, via Attorney General Pam Bondi, arrested Lemon along with three others—Georgia Fort, an independent journalist who filmed last night as agents came to her home, along with Trahern Jeen Crews and Jamael Lydell Lundy, both activists—who were at the church during the demonstration against federal immigration agents’ violent campaign in the Twin Cities. On January 18, protestors entered Cities Church in St. Paul, where a pastor was identified as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said that the reporter had been picked up while covering the Grammy awards. “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. “The first amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.” Lemon is set to appear in court on Friday.
In total, the administration tried to charge eight people, including Lemon, under a law that protects people participating in services at their houses of worship. A federal magistrate judge who reviewed the arrests only approved three, throwing out the cases against Lemon and others. The Department of Justice then tried to convince a federal appeals court to force the judge to issue additional warrants for the arrests. The judge, again, declined to pursue charges. Still, the administration went after the journalists and activists.
When the DOJ arrested the three people that the judge signed off on, it invoked a federal felony statute from the Reconstruction Era, designed to safeguard the rights of Black Americans to do things like worship and vote amid terror and violence from the Ku Klux Klan.
Lemon, like several of the other people the administration arrested in connection with the January 18 protests, is Black.
Conservative political strategist and lawyer Mike Davis lauded the move by Bondi on X, writing, “Nobody is above the law. Especially not today’s klansmen—like Don Lemon—who storm churches and terrorize Christians.” Harmeet K. Dhillon, the DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, reposted it. “We’re going to pursue this to the ends of the Earth,” Dhillon said during an interview with Megyn Kelly on Friday.
From January to December 15 of last year, at least 32 journalists were detained or charged just for doing their jobs.
The official X account for The White House boasted about the arrest on Friday, posting “When life gives you lemons…” accompanied by a chain emoji and a black and white photo of Lemon.
Lemon is also reportedly facing charges of violating the FACE Act, or the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, which was created to protect people trying to obtain or provide reproductive health services from violent or disruptive protestors. A section in that law also protects worshipers in religious spaces.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump justice department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, said, referencing the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
Lemon is the latest in a long string of journalists being arrested at immigration-related protests.
From January to December 15 of last year, at least 32 journalists were detained or charged just for doing their jobs, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker created by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Twenty eight of the 32 were at immigration-related protests—a reality that is poised to become even more critical after the violent crackdown in the Twin Cities, and as federal agents continue their operations across the nation.
