Washington: Federal agents arrested a former CNN anchor, Don Lemon, over his participation in an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church, which he says he was covering as a journalist.
Lemon was taken into custody while he was reporting on the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, according to a statement from his lawyer that labelled the arrest “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment”, which protects free speech.
Attorney-General Pam Bondi confirmed agents arrested Lemon overnight, at her direction, alongside another independent journalist and two others, “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St Paul, Minnesota”.
In the January 18 protest, activists interrupted a church service where the pastor was also an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. They chanted “ICE out” and “justice for Renee Good”, referring to the US citizen killed by an ICE agent in nearby Minneapolis earlier in January.
The activists are accused of breaking a law that prohibits using force or the threat of force to interfere with people’s religious freedom at a place of worship. It also prevents protesters doing the same thing to people accessing abortion services.
“Make no mistake, under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”
But Lemon and Fort say they were there to film and document the demonstration as journalists, not as activists.
“The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable,” Lemon’s attorney Abbe Lowell said.
“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.
“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 Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemned the arrests. Chief executive Jodie Ginsberg said the treatment of journalists was a leading indicator of the health of a country’s democracy.
“These arrests are just the latest in a string of egregious and escalating threats to the press in the United States — and an attack on people’s right to know,” she said.
The Justice Department initially sought charges against eight people, but a federal magistrate who reviewed the evidence only signed arrest warrants for three of them – not for Lemon or Fort. An appeals court also rejected the request. The government then sought and obtained indictments for the others from a grand jury of citizens.
White House deputy chief of staff James Blair stressed that fact on X: “A federal grand jury indicted Don Lemon. He was not just magically arrested.” He added: “Any ‘news’ outlet failing to make clear in their headline that Don Lemon was indicted by a federal grand jury is intentionally misleading the public.”
Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after making comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley that were perceived as sexist, and reports alleging other misogynistic comments. He later apologised, and now has 1.1 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he is a harsh critic of the Trump administration.
The arrests come as President Donald Trump revised his opinion of Alex Pretti – the second American citizen to be killed by federal agents in Minneapolis – after new footage emerged of Pretti in a heated interaction with law enforcement officials earlier in January.
The video showed Pretti yelling at agents, spitting in their direction and kicking in the tail lights of their car. An agent got out of the vehicle and tackled Pretti to the ground as the 37-year-old activist shouted: “F–k you.”
Trump – who ordered his border tsar to de-escalate the situation in Minnesota after Pretti’s death – said the new video cast Pretti in a different light.
“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just-released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the tail light broke off in pieces,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced there would be a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death – a turnaround from the administration’s original position, which was to conduct a limited internal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into the agents’ use of force.
Deputy attorney-general Todd Blanche said that as part of the probe, “We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened.”
with AP, Reuters
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
