Just how badly does Pam Bondi want to see a Don Lemon perpwalk? The Department of Justice will have to work a little harder to get it than just a demonstration of probable cause, it seems.
The DoJ threw in the towel on that approach yesterday. A federal magistrate denied their initial bid for an arrest warrant for Lemon based on his status as an independent journalist. The DoJ then infuriated Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who might have had more sympathy to their application, by going over his head for a mandamus writ rather than wait for him to hear arguments. The Eighth Circuit then denied the application for mandamus and referred prosecutors back to the judge they’d just annoyed, at which point they began to look at Plan B:
The three-judge panel, made up of Obama appointee Jane Kelly and Trump appointees Steven Graz and Jonathan Kobes, denied the request by the Trump administration to take Lemon into custody over the Jan. 18 demonstration inside Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn.
In a brief concurring statement, however, Graz said that prosecutors had “clearly establish[ed] probable cause for all five arrest warrants … [but] the government has failed to establish that it has no other adequate means of obtaining the requested relief.” …
By Monday afternoon the DOJ signaled that it would no longer seek a judge to sign off on Lemon’s arrest.
There’s a good reason for that. The DoJ basically poisoned the judicial well in a rush to achieve something that wasn’t at all urgent, except for the PR value. To understand what a clusterfark this was, read Scott Johnson’s rundown at Power Line on Saturday of the situation. One also has to understand that Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz is not a progressive wolf in a judicial wig, but rather a former Antonin Scalia clerk and a well-regarded jurist:
When Judge Schiltz consulted with his colleagues and advised Danny that he would get back to him, Rosen sought a petition for mandamus from the Eighth Circuit ordering Judge Schiltz to get with the program. Asked for his response to a petition that was under seal and that he had not seen, Judge Schiltz filed the angry four-page letter below with the Eighth Circuit. I take my recitation of the course of proceedings from Judge Schiltz’s letter.
The petition for mandamus was denied by a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit, though a concurrence by Judge Grasz states that the government has established probable cause for the arrest of all five uncharged participants. However, he continues, “the government has not established that it has no alternative means of obtaining the requested relief[,]” i.e., the arrest warrants. I take it that means the government can either await Judge Schiltz’s ruling on the appeal of the magistrate judge’s denial of the arrest warrants or seek indictments from a grand jury, as Judge Schiltz emphasizes. Extraordinary relief in the form of mandamus ordering Judge Schiltz to do anything is therefore inappropriate….
It is a bad sign that the government has royally teed off the chief judge, who must be one of the best district judges in the country. He is a former Scalia law clerk and former law partner of ours, among other things. It appears to me that this matter should probably be resolved in the ordinary course of business.
Scott revisited this yesterday when the court unsealed the DoJ petition for mandamus, and amended his comments above to stress that he believes Dan Rosen and the DoJ tried to act in good faith. However, Scott reaffirmed that the mandamus motion at this stage was “inappropriate.” I will add that it was entirely counterproductive, especially given the cases Schiltz is currently hearing on the issues around immigration enforcement. This morning, he threatened to hold a DHS official in contempt for failing to provide a bond hearing for a detainee, for instance. Schiltz is not playing around.
JUST IN: ICE chief faces court in Minnesota over missed bond hearings for detained immigrants. SNC’s @DianteMarigny reports. pic.twitter.com/VDsoFKJDBs
— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) January 27, 2026
That leaves the DoJ without much credibility in Schiltz’ courtroom, which might have been their most sympathetic venue in Minnesota. Small wonder, then, that prosecutors are not even going to bother asking for a federal district judge to review the magistrate’s refusal, even with the Eighth Circuit agreeing that the DoJ has probable cause for the Don Lemon arrest warrant.
That leaves prosecutors with the path they should have tried first: a grand jury. Granted, they may have trouble getting sympathy from a grand jury under the circumstances too, but the video of this church invasion is absolutely bonkers. The FACE Act and Ku Klux Klan Act violations are obvious and undeniable. The DoJ has plenty of video from before, during, and after the incident either suggesting or showing that Lemon coordinated with the other defendants in this case, and in fact pursued their agenda by lecturing the pastor on camera about Christianity and the theological legitimacy of the invasion. Could prosecutors get a conviction on that evidence? Perhaps, but it’s clearly enough evidence for an indictment.
If prosecutors can’t get an indictment for Lemon with that evidence, they wouldn’t get a conviction either. That would have informed their efforts from the start without infuriating a reliably fair federal judge and getting a lesson in Procedural 101 from the Eighth Circuit. Presumably, Pam Bondi still wants this arrest, and so wait for a week or two for the grand jury to meet and consider it.
Addendum: Even if Lemon never faces criminal liability for his violation of the Klan Act, he certainly has potentially ruinous civil liability for it. Perhaps the church will find attorneys with even more zeal to go after Lemon’s assets while the DoJ figures out its next steps.
Addendum II, via Twitchy: Can we get an amen for this Right Reverend?
Don Lemon, don’t come here. You roll up in this church doing stuff like that, and it’s going to the Royal Rumble.”pic.twitter.com/KodRt0gbRI
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 26, 2026
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