Don Lemon Arrested for Covering Minnesota Anti-ICE Protest
By Reuters | 30 Jan, 2026

In yet another instance of the Trump administration's use of federal authorities to stifle opposing media views, Lemon was arrested on trumped-up charges of violating the right to worship.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested for his involvement in a protest at a church in Minnesota, his lawyer and a U.S. Justice Department official familiar with the situation said on Friday.

Lemon livestreamed a demonstration earlier this month that interrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, protesting President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in the area. He said he was at the demonstration to cover it as a journalist. 

Lemon is charged with conspiring to deprive others of their civil rights and violating the FACE Act by allegedly obstructing access to a house of worship, according to a Justice Department official. FBI and Homeland Security Investigations agents arrested him in Los Angeles, the source said.

Lemon's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, called his arrest an "unprecedented attack on the First Amendment," referring to the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press.

REPEATED DOJ ACTION AGAINST TRUMP CRITICS

The Justice Department under Trump has regularly tried to prosecute a succession of critics and perceived opponents of the president. It unsuccessfully sought to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who both led investigations into Trump.

The department has also opened investigations into nine Democratic lawmakers, a former CIA director, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has resisted Trump's pressure to rapidly lower interest rates. 

Trump frequently lambasts journalists and news outlets, going further than his predecessors by sometimes suing them for damages or stripping disfavored outlets of their access-granting press credentials. 

Earlier this month, FBI agents with a search warrant seized laptops and other devices from the home of a Washington Post reporter who has extensively covered Trump's firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, saying it was an investigation into the leaking of secret government information. Press advocates said the move threatened journalistic freedom.

WELL-KNOWN TV PERSONALITY

Lemon said he was tipped off ahead of time but did not know the activists would disrupt the service. He can be seen arguing with a parishioner about immigration enforcement.

Trump administration officials quickly condemned the demonstration and accused protesters of intimidating Christian worshippers. 

Lemon spent 17 years at CNN, becoming one of its most recognizable personalities, and he has not shied from criticizing the government on air.

Soon after the church protest in Minnesota, federal agents arrested three people involved and charged them with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prevents obstructing abortion clinics and places of worship. 

However, a magistrate judge declined to also issue arrest warrants for Lemon and the video producer who joined him at the church, telling prosecutors they had not shown "probable cause" that Lemon and the producer had broken a law. 

In an unusual move that drew a rebuke from the chief federal judge in Minnesota, Patrick Schiltz, the Justice Department filed emergency applications to get Schiltz and then the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule the magistrate judge. Schiltz told prosecutors that if they disagreed with a magistrate judge's decision, they must instead seek an indictment from a grand jury in order to arrest Lemon.

In a letter filed in court records, Schiltz wrote that Lemon and his producer "were not protestors at all."

"There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so," the chief judge wrote.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

CNN fired Lemon in 2023 after he made on-air comments about women and then-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley that were widely perceived as sexist. Lemon later apologized.

(Reporting by Jana Winter, Andrew Goudsward, and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone, Andy Sullivan and Lisa Shumaker)