Update: Former CNN host Don Lemon charged with federal civil rights crimes in Minnesota church protest

FILE – Don Lemon (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, FILE)

UPDATE:  Former CNN host Don Lemon has been released from custody after being charged with federal civil rights crimes in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted services at a Minnesota church.

Lemon is charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul.

In court in Los Angeles, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Robbins argued for a $100,000 bond, telling a judge that Lemon “knowingly joined a mob that stormed into a church.” He was released, however, without having to post money and was granted permission to travel to France in June while the case is pending.

Defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski said Lemon plans to plead not guilty and fight the charges in Minnesota.

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media, confirming the arrest of Lemon and the others who were present during 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.

Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, his attorney Abbe Lowell said. The protest happened January 18 at the church, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor.

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.”

Since being fired from CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for President Trump. Yet during his online show from the church, he said repeatedly, “I’m not here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene in front of him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.

The indictment names nine defendants including Lemon. It says two of them posted their planned action on social media the day before and gave the others instructions in a shopping center parking lot the following morning.

Lemon started livestreaming and told the audience he was with a group gearing up for a “resistance” operation against federal immigration policies, according to the document. Lemon “took steps to maintain operational secrecy by reminding co-conspirators to not disclose the target of their operation,” the indictment says, and stepped away so his microphone would not accidentally divulge the planning.

During the briefing before the operation, prosecutors say, Lemon thanked an activist who is among the nine indicted for what she was doing and assured her he was not saying what was going on.

Inside the church the defendants shouted slogans and blew whistles after the pastor was about to begin the sermon and gestured in a hostile and aggressive manner, according to prosecutors, and the pastor and congregants perceived “threats of violence.”

Lemon told the livestream he saw a young man who was frightened, sad and crying and it was understandable because the experience was traumatic and uncomfortable, the indictment says. The defendants then surrounded the pastor and Lemon “peppered him with questions to promote the operation’s message.”

A magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge him. Shortly after, Lemon predicted on his show that the administration would try again.

“And guess what,” he said. “Here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Just do it. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton called Lemon’s arrest “alarming” saying the Trump administration is using a “sledge hammer” on “the knees of the First Amendment.”

“We cannot let Donald Trump put tape over our mouths to muffle our right to free speech, when his administration is conducting some of the most heinous actions in American history,” Sharpton said in a statement.

Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads ICE’s St. Paul field office.

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice acted swiftly to protect Cities Church so that we can continue to faithfully live out the church’s mission to worship Jesus and make him known,” lead pastor Jonathan Parnell said Friday in a statement.

“Make no mistake. Under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely,” Bondi said in a video posted to social media on Friday. “And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

Fort, an independent journalist, livestreamed the moments before her arrest on Facebook Live, saying “agents are at my door right now” with an arrest warrant and a grand jury indictment.

“I don’t feel like I have my first amendment right as a member of the press because now the federal agents are at my door arresting me for filming the church protest a few weeks ago,” Fort said, adding that she knew she was on a sealed list of defendants.

It was not immediately clear if Fort and the two other Minnesotans who were arrested have attorneys.

A prominent civil rights attorney and two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week.

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.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for Nekima Levy Armstrong, who was in the first group arrested, said the latest prosecutions “are beyond the pale.”

“Nonviolent protest is not a federal felony,” Kushner said.

Lundy is an intergovernmental affairs manager in the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, and is married to St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie. Bowie and Moriarty could not be reached for comment.

Lemon briefly interviewed Lundy, who is also a candidate for state senate, as they gathered with protesters preparing to drive to the church.

“I feel like it’s important that if you’re going to be representing people in office that you are out here with the people,” he told Lemon, adding he believed in “direct action, certainly within the lines of the law.”

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