Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested after reporting on an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The protesters disrupted a service at Cities Church — where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official allegedly serves as a pastor — by pouring into the sanctuary and chanting “Out ICE” earlier this month. The Trump administration sought to charge eight people, including Mr. Lemon, citing a law that protects people seeking to participate in a service in a house of worship.
Mr. Lemon livestreamed the demonstration and said he was acting in a journalism capacity.
“Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” he said in a recent video. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
It was not immediately clear why he was arrested, but multiple reports say federal agents arrested him on charges that he violated federal law during the protest.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said that early Friday morning, federal agents also arrested Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy.
A federal appellate court declined to order a lower court judge to sign arrest warrants for multiple people last week in connection with the demonstration. But one judge felt that there was probable cause to justify the arrests, according to multiple reports.
The judge approved charges against only three of the people, determining that the evidence against Mr. Lemon and others was insufficient.
In a letter to the appeals court, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz wrote, “There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”
The Justice Department then asked a federal appeals court to push the U.S. District Court in Minnesota to issue the additional warrants over civil rights charges, but was denied.
Federal agents took Mr. Lemon into custody in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, his lawyer Abbe Lowell said.
Mr. Lowell described his arrest as an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment,” adding that Mr. Lemon will “fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
“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,” Mr. Lowell said. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand.”
Mr. Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 and has since worked as an independent journalist. As a frequent critic of President Trump, he provoked the administration over his coverage of the anti-immigration enforcement protest.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Mr. 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.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said there is zero basis to arrest Mr. Lemon, calling on the Justice Department to free him immediately.
“The Trump Justice Department is illegitimate, and these extremists will all be held accountable for their crimes against the Constitution,” he said.
Multiple people have been charged in connection with the protest.
Ms. Fort, another independent journalist who filmed the protest, was also arrested. She said that early Friday morning, federal agents were at her door to arrest her and told her they had a warrant for her arrest after a grand jury had recently indicted her.
“As a member of the press, I filmed the church protest a few weeks ago, and now I’m being arrested for that,” she said. “It’s hard to understand how we have a Constitution, Constitutional rights, when we can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”
This newest development comes amid boiling tensions in Minnesota’s twin cities, where Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown has inflamed civil unrest following two fatal shootings involving federal immigration agents.
On the night of the protest, Ms. Bondi warned that “If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails.”
