Former CNN host Don Lemon has been arrested after he entered a Minnesota church and filmed anti-immigration enforcement protesters as they disrupted a service.
Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents on Thursday night while in Los Angeles covering the Grammy Awards, according to a statement from his lawyer Abbe Lowell.
Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court, the attorney said.
Lemon went into the Cities Church in St Paul on January 19 with a group of protesters who claimed one of the pastors was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official.
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 posted to Lemon's Instagram account. The lawyer added: This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand.
In his own defense, Lemon stated in a video, Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it.
Initially, the Trump administration sought to charge eight individuals involved in the protest, citing laws protecting individuals in places of worship. However, only three were charged after a magistrate judge reviewed the evidence, excluding Lemon.
The government later challenged that decision but was denied by an appeals court. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi condemned the protests during a visit to Minneapolis, calling the situation horrific.
Harmeet Dhillon from the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division vowed to pursue the case aggressively in a Friday interview. These protests are part of ongoing unrest in Minnesota, where federal immigration operations have led to confrontations resulting in two U.S. citizens' deaths.
Jim Acosta, Lemon's former colleague at CNN, responded to the arrest on social media, stating, This is outrageous and cannot stand. The First Amendment is under attack in America!
