Former CNN host Don Lemon charged with federal civil rights crimes after MN church protest: DHS

Former CNN host Don Lemon was charged with federal civil rights crimes after an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church, the Department of Homeland Security said on Friday.DHS said that Lemon is charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor, The Associated Press reported. Another journalist and two protest participants have also been arrested.
Lemon was arrested on Thursday night, his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, told CBS News. 
A grand jury was empaneled on Thursday, according to White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair. According to sources, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations were involved in the arrest.
Lowell confirmed that his client was taken into custody by federal agents Thursday night in Los Angeles, where he was covering this weekend’s Grammy Awards. 
Lemon has said he was an independent journalist covering the 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,” Lowell said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work.”
A federal appellate court last week declined to order a lower court judge to sign arrest warrants for five people, including Lemon, in connection with an anti-ICE protest inside a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of three appellate judges said he felt there was probable cause to justify the arrests, per court filings and sources.
“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X on Friday.
Lemon was in the church during the protest, but said that he has no affiliation with the group that organized the demonstration and was there chronicling it as a journalist.
“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,” Lemon said in a video posted on social media. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
Lemon worked at CNN until he was fired in 2023.

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