He might be thrillin’ baby, but my tabs (my tabs) so doggone willin’ …
Just a guy doing journalism. https://t.co/juxCZrmVcN
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 31, 2026
Ed: This is background for the credibility of Don Lemon rather than evidence in the charges he faces. Even opinion journalists and TV hosts have First Amendment rights, and “reporting” is an action rather than an identity. However, Lemon’s own video shows clearly that he wasn’t reporting on this church invasion but actively part of the conspiracy to commit the act. The fact that he’s a clown is a separate but still satisfying matter.
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Scott Johnson at Power Line: Two of the defendants are journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. The fog machine at the Star Tribune is working overtime to obscure the issue raised by their alleged illegal misconduct. Assuming they committed the misconduct in issue, does the First Amendment shield them from the law? In other words, do they have a First Amendment right to interfere with the civil rights of others? I think the question answers itself.
Yesterday the Star Tribune reported “Minnesota law professors call arrests of journalists for documenting church protest an attack on free press.” The story quotes Professor Julie Jonas of the University of St. Thomas Law School opining, for example, “What the administration is basically saying is that you can’t report on this unless we approve of what you’re reporting on. They are trying to chill journalistic endeavors, and they’re successful in many ways.”
Now that is stupid. The indictment treats Lemon and Fort as citizens subject to the law like their fellow rioters — like Nekima Levy Armstrong. Hey, she used to teach at the UST law school too. Shouldn’t that shield her? …
In days of old I devoted many thousands of words trying to explain the falsity of claims such as those promoted in the Star Tribune story in the context of the recurring violations of law committed by the New York Times. I wrote one such column for the Weekly Standard. I titled the column “Is the New York Times a law unto itself?” In the Cities Church case we would ask whether Don Lemon is a law unto himself. If so, it would give new meaning to the term Lemon law.
Ed: Scott links to a previous column regarding the limits of the First Amendment in regard to journalism. It’s worth reading this post in its entirety.
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Don Lemon’s attorney Abbe Lowell is outraged by how Lemon was arrested:
“They wanted it to be terrifying. They waited until he went to Los Angeles. They waited until 11:30 at night. There was a bevy of agents.”
Did Abbe sleep through the four years of the Biden FBI? pic.twitter.com/kMdFI50AaS
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 31, 2026
Ed: I’m not going to begrudge Lowell doing his job. He is supposed to provide a robust defense of his clients in both court and in public, and he gets paid very well to do so. But let’s see someone challenge Lowell on the arrest of Mark Houck for an alleged FACE Act violation that consisted of a sidewalk argument outside an abortion clinic, and not a full-scale invasion of a church during worship services. The FBI sent an armed team to raid Houck’s house at dawn while his family slept.
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Shipwreckedcrew: At the time I’m writing this the indictment filed against Don Lemon has not yet been released. I’ll save an analysis for the charges after we see exactly what they are, and the nature of the factual allegations that are included.
This article addresses the claims being made online by opponents in the media of the Trump Administration in general, and the immigration law enforcement efforts in particular, about the decision to charge Don Lemon for his involvement with the group that stormed and occupied the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota 12 days ago.
Steve Baker was a freelance journalist on January 6, 2021 — and had worked in that regard for several years. Steve was also a professional musician who toured with various jazz bands as a very highly regarded trumpet player. But with COVID closing down most live-music venues, Steve devoted more of his time to his efforts to cover stories that were overlooked by the legacy media. He sold rights to his video to numerous national media companies — in fact, some of the video he took on January 6 was licensed to the NYT and other legacy media outlets, as well as for use by HBO in the making of its documentary about that day. …
Steve ultimately entered a guilty plea without admitting most of the factual characterizations attributed to him by the DOJ. It was a bit of a “struggle session” in front of Judge Cooper. But the hearing took place on November 12, after President Trump had won the 2024 election, and we were very confident that his case would never reach the sentencing hearing. That turned out to be true, and the Trump DOJ moved to dismiss his case on January 25, 2025.
I recall no outpouring of outrage from the legacy media and their friends in liberal/progressive politics over the indictment of Steve Baker.
Ed: As usual, it’s well worth the time to read the entire essay about Steve Baker’s prosecution related to the January 6 riot, when Baker acted as a journalist rather than a participant. Democrats have a real J6 problem in defending Lemon in this instance, because Lemon participated far more actively in the church invasion than Baker ever did in the J6 riot. And the FACE Act is much more specific to Lemon’s actions, too.
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Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have been released.
But the procedural history now emerging is unusual. Before the arrests, a federal magistrate judge found no probable cause to arrest them. The government appealed anyway.
Here’s why that matters—and what it signals more broadly.
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 31, 2026
In a functioning system, that ends it. Instead, the DOJ appealed to a higher court to override the magistrate’s ruling and force the warrants through.
That procedural move—seeking arrests after a judge said the evidence didn’t support them—is the anomaly.
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 31, 2026
Ed: What anomaly? Appeals are a normal part of the judicial process. In turning down the mandamus request, the Eighth Circuit acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to establish probable cause and get an arrest warrant for Lemon, but that they needed to escalate the request to the district court first. That doesn’t sound anomalous, does it? And as it turned out, the DoJ got the arrest warrant a few days later with a more substantial evidentiary showing.
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Jonathan Turley: That inexorable pattern will soon play out as Democratic establishment leaders fuel the rage in the streets of cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. A glimpse of this reality was seen this week at Sarah Lawrence College. The college has long pandered to the far left and has virtually purged any conservatives or libertarians from its faculty ranks. Without a conservative to cancel, students set upon liberal columnist Ezra Klein, disrupting his talk, as Cristle Judd, president of Sarah Lawrence College, sat obediently in silence next to him.
After disrupting the event, the students left to carry on their protests outside. What was notable was Klein’s surprise, who (to his credit) remained calm and tried to engage the protesters. Klein attempted to object that he was not a “denier” of alleged atrocities in Gaza. The students were not there for a dialogue but a disruption. They ignored Klein’s efforts to tamp down the rhetoric and yelling.
Judd was entirely useless, remaining a mere pedestrian watching the protest. After the students left, she quipped, “Welcome to Sarah Lawrence College.” There was no pledge to suspend or expel the students: just a shrug and a joke.
Ed: Of course there was no pledge to punish the perps. Academia exists to groom poorly educated teens into mindless cannon fodder for street violence. This is exactly what Judd aspires to forming, and “Welcome to Sarah Lawrence College” is not really a “quip” in the humorous sense. It is an admission.
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Ronan is arguing that it’s not a crime to go into a church and violate the congregation’s civil rights if the pastor has a job leftwingers don’t like. https://t.co/wbEu4HxM3g
— RBe (@RBPundit) January 31, 2026
Ed: Not only is this an absurd argument, it has literally been negated for 135 years after the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1970. The FACE Act has also been around for decades, and it makes clear that protests against abortions cannot extend into the clinics themselves. And pro-lifers have been prosecuted under it since its passage, even with the argument that abortionists work inside the clinics.
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Real Clear Politics: It’s true, as Democratic Party officials and liberal commentators would have us believe, that a critical mass of Americans are dissatisfied – many passionately so – with the harsh immigration policies emanating from Washington. In a new survey by RealClear Opinion Research, 48% of respondents said they think immigration policy is worse off than a year ago, while only 41% think it is better off. (Eleven percent think it is about the same.)
It’s hardly an endorsement of the Trump regime. That said, when asked whether they preferred the Biden administration’s immigration policies, the answer was a resounding “no.” By a margin of 43%-28% (with 29% answering “neither”), voters chose Donald Trump’s approach over Joe Biden’s. The obvious implication here is that while voters look askance at the over-zealous enforcement of immigration law that has turned Minneapolis and Chicago and a couple of other places into war zones, they were even more turned off by the previous administration’s gambit of essentially opening the southern border.
The RCP survey also found that only 27.6% of self-described independent voters believe the Republican Party is doing a “good job” handling immigration, compared to 37.2% who say the GOP is “not doing a good job.” Again, not encouraging numbers for Trump and his political party. Except that even fewer independents (19.7%) say the Democrats are doing a good job on immigration, as contrasted with 37% who say they aren’t doing a good job. So Democrats are nearly 10 percentage points underwater with the voting bloc that tends to settle all close elections. And 2026 is an election year.
Ed: And let’s not forget that voters made it clear in 2024 that they wanted the border secured and illegal aliens ejected from the US. Donald Trump won the election, with immigration being perhaps the most important difference between the two parties. Voters do not want to “abolish ICE,” or return to the Biden Regency’s malign neglect of the border and another tsunami of border-crossers totalling eight figures. Trump’s shift to Homan came at a good time, and as RCP goes on to posit, the effort to find cooperation on this will likely strengthen the GOP’s position on immigration in the weeks and months to come.
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🚨 BREAKING: Journalist @LizCollin reports that WALZ and KLOBUCHAR may have made an INSIDE DEAL to appoint him as SENATOR 🚨
“Governor Walz you’ll notice, was careful to say he will not run for public office again. However, he could be appointed to a Senate seat.” pic.twitter.com/8Q3Ko52j2z
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) January 30, 2026
Ed: A few people sent me this, but this isn’t much more than ordinary politics. Rod Blagojevich got prosecuted for trying to score personal financial benefits from his “f*****g valuable” opportunity. I’m skeptical about this for other reasons. When (not if) Klobuchar becomes governor, she won’t want to have the stench of the Minnesota fraud schemes that will be attached to Walz’ administration. Also, Walz says he doesn’t want to run for office, and that seat will come up for a regular election in 2028. It would make far more sense for Klobuchar to appoint someone who can run for a full term in 2028 with a two-year head start, rather than force a primary fight.
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I bet if you were to ask her, she’d rather have healthy, functioning breasts than $2 million. Nonetheless, a huge victory for all who will inevitably realize they were lied to in the name of “affirmation”.
Bankrupt every single one of these monsters. https://t.co/YapSoYNGbg
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) January 31, 2026
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