Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was released by a federal judge on Friday after he was charged by the Trump administration with violating the freedom of religion of worshippers at a Minnesota church where he was covering a protest earlier this month.
Lemon was released on a personal recognizance bond and appeared outside a downtown federal courthouse several minutes later, saying the prosecution will not stop him from his work reporting news. “I will not stop ever,” he said.
He added, “The First Amendment of the constitution protects that work for me and for countless other journalists. I will not be silenced.”
The journalist’s L.A.-area lawyer, Marilyn Bednarski, said he plans to plead not guilty.
Lemon was indicted alongside eight co-defendants more than a week after a federal magistrate judge found the Trump administration lacked probable cause to arrest him and several others under a federal statute that a top Justice Department official conceded had never been used in the context of a protest at a church before.
Lemon, 59, and three others — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy — were arrested Friday in what Attorney General Pam Bondi described in a post on X as a “coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
In a video posted on his YouTube channel, Lemon, who is now an independent journalist, stood outside the church with protesters and said he was at an “operation that is a secret.” One protester told Lemon, as seen on the video, the group was at the house of worship to protest the killing of Renee Good by ICE officers. Lemon later said from inside the church, “We’re not part of the activists, but we’re here just reporting on them.”
A federal grand jury seated in Minnesota returned the indictment on Thursday against Lemon and eight co-defendants. The indictment charges Lemon with conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating, and interfering with the exercise of right of religious freedom at a place of worship.
The Trump administration attempted to keep three of Lemon’s co-defendant detained until trial, according to court records, but a federal magistrate judge in Minnesota rejected their request for a detention hearing.
Lemon’s main defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in an earlier statement that he was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he was covering the lead up to Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
“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,’ Lowell said. “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,” Lowell added.
The group Human Rights Campaign organized a rally outside the Edward R. Roybal federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles where proceedings for Lemon took place on Friday.
Speaking outside court, board member Todd Hawkins decried Lemon’s arrest and prosecution.
“When journalists can be detained for covering protests, none of us are safe,” he said. “Punish the press, ignore the dead, dare the public to look away. We will not look away.”
The arrest of one the country’s most recognizable journalists is the latest development in the federal government’s unprecedented immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, in which two U.S. citizens have been shot and killed.
Promises made, promises kept
The Justice Department promised to pursue charges against Lemon after the independent journalist covered the protest at the church in St. Paul on Jan. 18.
A federal magistrate judge had previously rejected a criminal complaint against Lemon. A source familiar with the matter, described Bondi as “enraged” by the decision.
The indictment alleges Lemon attended a briefing by protesters ahead of the event and that he openly characterized the upcoming protest as one involving civil disobedience. Prosecutors said he kept the church location a secret until his live coverage.
Friday’s arrests followed the prior apprehension of three others — Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly — who disrupted the same church service in St. Paul.
Demonstrators gathered at the service because its pastor, David Easterwood, allegedly works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The protesters say Easterwood is the acting director of an ICE field office in St. Paul.
The federal government cited the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to justify the arrest of the three protesters. The federal statute prohibits the use of force or intimidation to anyone trying to access reproductive services, but also contains provisions that cover houses of worship.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump administration’s top DOJ Civil Rights Division official, conceded earlier this month that the use of the statute in this manner lacks historical precedent.
“In all these years up until I was the assistant attorney general for civil rights, nobody ever used that houses of worship part to prosecute protesters or criminals blocking access to a house of worship, so we’ve started to do that,” Dhillon said in a video she posted earlier this month.
Trump had pardoned a number of anti-abortion protesters prosecuted under the FACE Act, and the Justice Department dismissed other cases that were pending.
A Justice Department memo issued days after Trump’s inauguration last year also created new bureaucratic hurdles on abortion cases that don’t apply to church cases. It mandates that “future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage. Cases not presenting significant aggravating factors can adequately be addressed under state or local law.”
The previously arrested protesters were also released after federal judges rejected the Trump administration’s attempts to keep them locked up until trial, with one judge saying the Trump administration offered “no factual or legal support” for their claim that this was a crime of violence.
Lemon was arrested by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations in Beverly Hills at approximately midnight, according to a federal warrant issued in another district.
Prior to his arrest, Lemon said he stood by his reporting.
“If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good — the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place,” he said in a statement last week.
Lemon’s next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 9 in Minneapolis.
Operation Metro Surge
The federal government has sent 3,000 federal immigration agents to the Twin Cities over the last two months and arrested more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Amid the crackdown, Renee Good, 37, and Alex Pretti, 37, were both shot and killed by federal immigration authorities in separate confrontations, incensing large swaths of the nation.
The operation has also transformed daily life in the Twin Cities, with some residents protesting daily, patrolling the region’s streets for immigration agents and delivering groceries to undocumented families who are afraid to leave their homes.
After initially doubling down and referring to both Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists,” Trump administration officials said they plan on reducing the number of agents in the state.
On Thursday, the administration also swapped out Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino for Trump border czar Tom Homan, a former Obama staffer, to oversee the immigration operation in the Twin Cities, dubbed Operation Metro Surge
Homan said at a press conference Thursday that “no organization is perfect” and that administration officials, including the president, “have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.”
‘Should alarm all Americans’
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that promotes press freedoms worldwide, condemned Lemon’s arrest.
“The arrest of journalist Don Lemon in connection with his reporting on a protest in Minnesota should alarm all Americans,” Katherine Jacobsen, who works on the organization’s U.S. efforts, said in a statement. “Instead of prioritizing accountability in the killings of two American citizens, the Trump administration is devoting its resources to arresting journalists.”
CNN said in a post on X that Lemon’s arrest “raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who announced Lemon’s release outside court, earlier condemned his arrest.
“Let me be very clear — President Trump is not deescalating anything after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents,” she said in a statement. “In fact, the arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort demonstrates quite the opposite — he is escalating.”
In its own post on X, the White House appeared to mock Lemon.
“When life gives you lemons…” the White House account wrote, coupled with a chain emoji and image of Lemon from inside the church.
Representatives for Lemon, Lemon’s husband, Cities Church and the three others arrested did not immediately respond to requests for comment.