Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested on Friday and accused of violating federal civil rights law in connection with his coverage of a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month.
Lemon was arrested along with three others and charged with conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship.
He was released on a personal recognizance bond on Friday and appeared outside a downtown federal courthouse several minutes later.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news,” he said. “I will not stop now. There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”
The arrest of one the country’s most recognizable journalists is the latest development in the federal government’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, in which two U.S. citizens have been shot and killed.
A federal grand jury seated in Minnesota returned the indictment on Thursday against Lemon and eight co-defendants.
Lemon, 59, and three of the co-defendants — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy — were arrested Friday in connection with what Attorney General Pam Bondi described in a post on X as a “coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
Three others had been previously arrested on federal charges and then released by a judge after the Trump administration tried to keep them detained.
A federal magistrate judge found the Trump administration lacked probable cause to arrest Lemon and several of other defendants under a federal statute that a top Justice Department official conceded had never been used in the context of a protest at a church before.
Two of the people whose names appear on the indictment do not appear to have been taken into federal custody.
Demonstrators had gathered at the Minneapolis church on Jan. 18 because they said its pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The indictment alleges Lemon attended a briefing by protesters ahead of the event and that he openly characterized the upcoming protest as one involving civil disobedience. Prosecutors said he kept the church location a secret until his live coverage.
Lemon was arrested by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations in Beverly Hills at approximately midnight, according to a federal warrant issued in another district.
His defense attorney Abbe Lowell said in an earlier statement that federal agents took him into custody in Los Angeles, where he was covering the lead-up to Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
“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 said. “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,” Lowell added.
One of Lemon’s other attorneys, Marilyn Bednarski, said in court that he plans to plead not guilty.
Promises made, promises kept
The Justice Department promised to pursue charges against Lemon after he covered the protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul earlier this month.
In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Lemon stood outside the church with protesters and said he was at an “operation that is a secret.” Lemon later said from inside the church, “We’re not part of the activists, but we’re here just reporting on them.”
Protesters say the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, is the acting director of an ICE field office in the city.
Three of the protesters who disrupted the church service — Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly — had previously been arrested.
The Trump administration attempted to keep them and three other protesters — a total of six of Lemon’s co-defendants — detained until trial, according to court records, but federal magistrate judges in Minnesota rejected their request for a detention hearing.
A federal magistrate judge had previously rejected a criminal complaint against Lemon. A source familiar with the matter described Bondi as “enraged” by the decision.
The protest came amid an immigration crackdown in which the federal government has sent 3,000 federal immigration agents to the Twin Cities over the last two months and arrested more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Amid the crackdown, Renee Good, 37, and Alex Pretti, 37, were both shot and killed by federal immigration authorities in separate confrontations, incensing large swaths of the nation.
Prior to his arrest, Lemon said he stood by his reporting.
“If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good — the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place,” he said in a statement last week.
Lemon’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 9 in Minneapolis.
Fort, one of Lemon’s co-defendants and an independent journalist based in Minneapolis, told NBC News that she was arrested Friday morning as her three daughters watched.
“Nearly two dozen federal agents surrounded my home at 6 a.m., shortly after my husband left for work,” she said by email. “As the mother of three daughters, ages 7 to 17, it was heartbreaking to have my children begin their day this way.”
Fort livestreamed the moments before her arrest on Facebook and titled the resulting video, “Agents are at my door.”
“My 17-year-old daughter witnessed everything and is old enough to understand the context: I am a journalist who was arrested for doing my job, despite the constitutional protections afforded to the press,” Fort said.
FACE Act statute
The federal government cited the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to justify the arrest of the three protesters. The federal statute prohibits the use of force or intimidation to anyone trying to access reproductive services, but also contains provisions that cover houses of worship.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump administration’s top civil rights official in the DOJ, conceded earlier this month that the use of the statute in this manner lacks historical precedent.
“In all these years up until I was the assistant attorney general for civil rights, nobody ever used that houses of worship part to prosecute protesters or criminals blocking access to a house of worship, so we’ve started to do that,” Dhillon said in a video she posted earlier this month.
Trump previously pardoned a number of anti-abortion protesters prosecuted under the FACE Act, and the Justice Department dismissed other cases that were pending.
A Justice Department memo issued days after Trump’s inauguration last year also created new bureaucratic hurdles for abortion cases that don’t apply to church cases. It mandates that “future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage. Cases not presenting significant aggravating factors can adequately be addressed under state or local law.”
'Should alarm all Americans'
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that promotes press freedom worldwide, condemned Lemon’s arrest.
“The arrest of journalist Don Lemon in connection with his reporting on a protest in Minnesota should alarm all Americans,” Katherine Jacobsen, who works on the organization’s U.S. efforts, said in a statement. “Instead of prioritizing accountability in the killings of two American citizens, the Trump administration is devoting its resources to arresting journalists.”
CNN said in a post on X that Lemon’s arrest “raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment.”
The group Human Rights Campaign organized a rally outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles where proceedings for Lemon took place on Friday.
Speaking outside court, board member Todd Hawkins decried Lemon’s arrest and prosecution.
“When journalists can be detained for covering protests, none of us are safe,” he said. “Punish the press, ignore the dead, dare the public to look away. We will not look away.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who announced Lemon’s release outside the courthouse, earlier condemned his arrest.
“Let me be very clear — President Trump is not deescalating anything after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents,” she said in a statement. “In fact, the arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort demonstrates quite the opposite — he is escalating.”
In its own post on X, the White House appeared to mock Lemon.
“When life gives you lemons...” the White House account wrote, coupled with a chain emoji and image of Lemon from inside the church.
Representatives for Lemon, Lemon’s husband, Cities Church and the three others arrested did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
