At the January 18 protest, protestors interrupted a church service at Cities Church with chants of “ICE out.” An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was the pastor at the church. The Trump administration then tried to charge eight people, including Lemon, with conspiring to deprive rights and interfering with someone’s religious freedom in a house of worship.
“Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards,” says Abbe Lowell, one of Lemon’s lawyers. “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. 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.” The Times also references a recent video from Lemon where he said, “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. That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
Lemon wasn’t the only journalist arrested over the incident, and it’s not the first time the Trump administration has used the incident for attention. Georgia Fort, an independent journalist in the Twin Cities area, said in a live-streamed video this morning that she was being arrested for covering the protest, saying in the video, “This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media.” Previous arrests from the incident resulted in the White House posting an AI-edited photo of one of the arrested protesters to make it look like she was crying; she was not.
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