Former CNN host turned independent journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal civil rights charges connected to his coverage of a protest at a Minnesota church where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official is a pastor. Four others also pleaded not guilty in the case.
Lemon did not comment to reporters as he entered the courthouse accompanied by his attorney Joe Thompson, but he later issued a statement stating his refusal to be intimidated by the Trump administration and vowing to “fight these baseless charges”.
“For more than 30 years, I have been a journalist – and the power and protection of the first amendment has been the underpinning of my work,” Lemon said, referring to the US constitutional right to a free press. “The events before my arrest, and what’s happened since, show that people are finally realizing what this administration is all about.
“For them, the process is the punishment. Like all of you here in Minnesota, I will not be intimidated, I will not back down, and I will fight these baseless charges.”
Roughly two dozen protesters stood outside the building, chanting “Pam Bondi has got to go” and “Protect the press”. They held signs with slogans including “Lemon was just doing his job” and “ICE out”.
The veteran journalist’s attorney Abbe David Lowell told the judge that he will raise first amendment issues in the case. Lemon, 59, has said he was at the Southern Baptist church in St Paul to chronicle the protest but was not a participant.
Lowell also asked for Lemon’s phone to be returned after it was taken from him during his arrest in Los Angeles, saying its seizure was a possible “over-execution”. Prosecutors said the phone was in Department of Homeland Security custody, and that the search warrant for it was under seal. The phone could not be returned until the search process was completed, they said.
The civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong was among the other defendants to plead not guilty. The prominent local activist was the subject of a doctored photo posted on official White House social media that falsely showed her crying during her arrest. The picture is part of a deluge of AI-altered imagery that has circulated since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Two more defendants accused in the church protest are scheduled for arraignment next week, including another independent journalist, Georgia Fort. Nine people have been charged in the case.
Protesters interrupted a service at the Cities church on 18 January by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good”, referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who had been fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis 11 days prior.
A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon on charges of conspiracy and interfering with congregants’ constitutional rights to freely exercise their religion during the protest. He has said he is not affiliated with the protest group and that he was there as a journalist to chronicle the event for his livestream show.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now. In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable,” Lemon told reporters after his arrest.
The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) called the arrests of Lemon and fellow freelancer Georgia Fort part of “the government’s escalating effort and actions to criminalize and threaten press freedom under the guise of law enforcement”.
“A government that responds to scrutiny by targeting the messenger is not protecting the public,” the NABJ said in a statement. “It is attempting to intimidate it, and considering recent incidents regarding federal agents, it is attempting to distract it.”
The church protest drew sharp complaints from conservative religious and political leaders. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, called the demonstration a “coordinated attack” on the church. Meanwhile, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, warned in a social media post: “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.” Even clergy who oppose the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics expressed discomfort with the protest.
All nine are charged under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits interference or intimidation of “any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship”. Penalties can range up to a year in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Thompson is one of several former prosecutors who have left the US attorney’s office in Minnesota in recent weeks citing frustration with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown in the state and the justice department’s response to the killing of Good and Pretti.
One of four lawyers registered to represent Lemon, Thompson had led the sprawling investigation of major public program fraud cases for the prosecutor’s office until he resigned last month. The Trump administration has cited the fraud cases, in which most defendants have come from the state’s large Somali community, as justification for its immigration crackdown.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
