Anti-Trump “Journalist” Don Lemon has been arrested after he entered a Minnesota church and recorded anti-immigration enforcement protesters who disrupted a service in an incident that increased tensions between residents and the Trump administration, his lawyer said Friday.
Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where had been covering the Grammy Awards, his attorney Abbe Lowell said.
It is unclear what charge or charges Lemon is facing in the Jan. 18 protest. The arrest came after a magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the journalist.
Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023, has said he has no affiliation to the organization that went into the church and that he was there as a journalist chronicling protesters.
“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.”
Lowell added that “Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
A prominent civil rights attorney and at two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting a service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor.
(AP)
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4 Responses
“The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold the Politicians in power accountable.”…. Yes , and as usual politicians ,& journalists use their positions for their own agenda , & personal opinions .
“Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is married to a man. He married 40-year-old New York real estate broker Tim Malone on April 6, 2024, in a ceremony in New York City. The couple, who met in 2015 and got engaged in 2019, celebrated with 140 guests and their three dogs.”
Enough said.
if abc CNN cbs and all the others are journalists,
than a journalist is an activist, agitator and in some instances a terrorist, dressed in a suit.
NGI, that is completely irrelevant.
“The First Amendment exists to protect journalists”
No, it doesn’t. There is nothing special about “journalists”. They do not have any special status, and are not entitled to anything that anyone else does not get. Reporters are no different from carpenters, hairdressers, or garbage collectors.
Everyone is entitled to report on what they happen to observe. Lemon would like people to believe that he simply happened upon this gang of criminal thugs (whom he calls “protesters”), and just followed them to see where they went, followed them into the church, and reported on what they were doing.
But the video evidence seems to show that that’s not true. He definitely coordinated with the gang in advance. They told his driver where they were going. And he seems to have participated in their disruption of the service, even haranguing the pastor. That is a crime, and it doesn’t matter whether you call yourself a reporter.