Lemon, in addition to Minneapolis journalist Georgia Fort, was arrested for coverage of a Minneapolis protest
Don Lemon was arrested last night by federal agents. The LGBTQ journalist was reporting on peaceful protestors in a Minneapolis church this past week. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi also announced that she had arrested three others, including Georgia Fort, another journalist who has been documenting the administration’s actions in Minneapolis.
The arrests are a breathtaking escalation of the Trump Administration’s continued assault on the US Constitution, including conducting unconstitutional searches of people’s homes, attacking voting rights, weaponizing the FCC against free speech, and targeting the rights and health of LGBTQ people at every turn, said the Human Rights Campaign in a press release.
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of a free society,” said HRC President Kelley Robinson. She issued the following statement: “It is the tool by which Americans access the truth and hold power to account. But Donald Trump and Pam Bondi are at war with that freedom — and are threatening the fundamentals of our democracy. Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were doing their jobs as reporters.”
In the Human Rights Campaign statement she continued, “Arresting them is not law enforcement — it is an attack on the Constitution at a moment when truthful reporting on government power has never been more important. These are the actions of a despot, the tactics of a dictator in an authoritarian regime.
“We also reject attempts to dismiss the significance of who these journalists are: Black journalists, one of whom is queer, whose voices amplify perspectives too often excluded from mainstream discourse. This moment should serve as a wake-up call to every American who cares about civil liberties: when journalists can be detained for covering protests, none of us are safe. None of us are free. We will not sit by and allow a wannabe-tyrant to demolish our democracy.”
According to news reports Lemon was taken into custody after federal prosecutors made a renewed attempt to charge him despite a magistrate judge previously rejecting their initial case. Lemon has maintained that he was there to report on the protest, not participate in it.
Last week at an anti-ICE protest inside Cities Church demonstrators chanted “ICE out” during services after learning a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor.
Don Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, called the case “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”
The Justice Department has charged Lemon under laws protecting religious worship, even after a judge had previously found insufficient evidence to support the charges against him. Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, called the case “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”
Lemon said he saw this coming. After the first charge was dismissed, he said, “That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice.”
Georgia Fort, a prominent independent reporter in the Twin Cities, said online that federal agents have arrested her for filming the same church protest. “This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media,” Fort said. “It’s hard to understand how we have a Constitution … when you can be arrested for being a member of the press.”
