Liberal provocateur Don Lemon has been charged with federal civil rights crimes tied to an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a church service in Minnesota, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday.
Lemon was arrested Thursday by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, according to his attorney, Abbe Lowell. He was expected to appear in court there on Friday afternoon.
Prosecutors charged the veteran journalist with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor at the church. Another journalist and two protest participants were also arrested in Minnesota.
The now-unsealed indictment says that Lemon and co-defendants “conspired and agreed with one another [to] injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate multiple persons, including the clergy, staff, and congregants of the Cities Church, in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges secured to them by the laws of the United States, and because of such persons having exercised such right, namely, exercise of the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, as secured by Title 18, United States Code, Section 248(c), all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 241 (Conspiracy Against Rights).”
Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023, has said he had no affiliation with the group that entered the church and that he was present as an independent journalist documenting 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 earlier Friday. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the arrests of Lemon and the others tied to the protest.
“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,” Bondi said on social media.
