Former CNN host Don Lemon has appeared before a judge after being arrested for entering a Minnesota church and filming anti-immigration enforcement protesters as they disrupted a service.
After appearing in court, Lemon was released from custody. He told media outside that he was arrested for covering the news, adding: “I will not be silenced.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said he was charged with “conspiracy to deprive rights” and “violation of the FACE Act”, by allegedly interfering in someone’s First Amendment rights by force.
Lemon went into the Cities Church in St Paul on 18 January with protesters who said one of the pastors was an immigration enforcement official.
Lemon, an independent journalist, said he was taken into custody by federal agents on Thursday. He did not enter a plea in court.
“Last night the DOJ sent a team of federal agents to arrest me in the middle of the night for something that I have been doing for the last 30 years and that is covering the news,” Lemon said.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon added.
“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 has been charged with violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances and Places of Religious Worship (FACE) act, which is a law that typically has been used to crack down on demonstrations at abortion clinics but also prohibits obstructing access to houses of worship.
“Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court,” his lawyer Abbe Lowell said earlier on Friday in a statement posted on 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.”
Lowell said Lemon had been arrested while he was in Los Angeles covering the Grammy Awards.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said three others had been arrested: local independent journalist Georgia Fort, along with activists Trahem Jeen Crews and Jamael Lydell Lundy.
Fort was also released earlier on Friday after her court appearance in Minnesota.
America’s top law enforcement official accused them of participating in a “coordinated attack” on the church.
FBI Director Kash Patel said investigators from his agency and the DHS had arrested Lemon and the other three.
Fort posted a livestream of federal agents arriving at her home to arrest her.
“Agents are at my door right now,” she said in the clip. “My children are here, they’re impacted by this.”
President Donald Trump’s administration initially sought to charge eight people involved in the Minnesota church protest with conspiring to deprive rights and interfering with someone’s religious freedom in a house of worship.
But a magistrate judge who reviewed the evidence approved charges for only three of those involved, excluding Lemon.
The government challenged that decision, but an appeals court suggested prosecutors take the case to a federal grand jury – a panel of citizens that evaluates if there is enough evidence to charge someone in a case.
A longstanding Trump critic, Lemon was fired from CNN in April 2023 after 17 years with the company. The morning show host had apologised for on-air comments that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, then 51, was past her prime.
In the Minnesota church protest, he live-streamed with protesters on YouTube. The broadcast began with Lemon standing with the group in a car park where he says: “This is an operation that is secret.
“I can’t tell you what is going to happen, but you’re going to watch it live unfold here on ‘The Don Lemon Show.'”
He followed the group – whom he called “resistance protesters” – into the church, initially without his camera operator.
His microphone picked up audio of a woman shouting “excuse me pastor”.
Protesters chant “Justice for Renee Good”, referring to the US citizen who was fatally shot in her vehicle on 7 January during a confrontation with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis.
Footage showed a chaotic scene unfolding inside the church, which belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention, as protesters and members of the congregation shout at each other.
Lemon repeatedly says he is there as a journalist and is unaffiliated with demonstrators.
“We’re not part of the activists, but we’re here just reporting on them,” he says.
The pastor says: “This is unacceptable, it’s shameful. It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship.”
Harmeet Dhillon, of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, said during an interview with podcaster Megyn Kelly on Friday: “We’re going to pursue this to the ends of the Earth.”
The White House appeared to celebrate the arrest, posting a photo of Lemon on its official X account with the caption “when life gives you lemons”, next to an emoji of chain links.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the detention of Lemon “shocking” and “alarming.”
CNN said it raised “profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment”. The network said it would follow Lemon’s case closely.
This is the second high-profile incident this month of the Trump administration investigating a journalist, raising the alarm of free speech advocates.
On 14 January, the FBI showed up unannounced to the home of a Washington Post reporter with a search warrant and seized her devices over the alleged leak of classified information, although she herself was not charged with any crime.
Protests are continuing in Minnesota, where an operation by federal immigration agents has sparked confrontations that have left two US citizens dead: Renee Good, a mother-of-three, and Alex Pretti, a nurse.
