Trump DOJ arrests ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon after judge initially rejected church protest charges
Taken into custody covering the Grammys, Don Lemon’s lawyer calls arrest a ‘First Amendment violation’, saying he was just chronicling a protest
Former CNN anchor 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 on Friday.
Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, Abbe Lowell said.
It is unclear what charge or charges Lemon is facing in the January 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, live-streamed a demonstration that interrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month that protested US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the area.
The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good”, referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, said she had ordered the arrest of Lemon and three others, alleging they were involved in a “coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.