MN - Journalist Don Lemon arrested for church protest, Minneapolis, 18 Jan 2026

[Ontario Mom]

This investigation has NOT been conducted with integrity.

It was a sloppy hit job by the few people left in the federal offices willing to abuse the criminal justice system.

I get it, the executive branch did not like press coverage about ICE or protests against ICE.

We are not supposed to pick an enemy and then invent crimes around him. And after people with integrity left in droves, the prosecutors that were left cobbled together this embarrassing symptom of looming facsism.

MOO

Again, all of the above about the way this investigation has been handled, lack of integrity, looming fascism, abusing the system, etc. is merely your opinion, as you've stated. Repeatedly.

I'm more interested in the evidence that allegedly supports the charges. If the evidence is there and does in fact support the charges, everyone arrested should be held accountable according to the law.

jmo

 

[SouthAussie]

This investigation has NOT been conducted with integrity.

It was a sloppy hit job by the few people left in the federal offices willing to abuse the criminal justice system.

I get it, the executive branch did not like press coverage about ICE or protests against ICE.

We are not supposed to pick an enemy and then invent crimes around him. And after people with integrity left in droves, the prosecutors that were left cobbled together this embarrassing symptom of looming facsism.

MOO

And I think that Don's actual arrest was intended to be splashy. His lawyer had offered (as is often typical and allowed) for Don to turn himself in, if he was going to be arrested.

Then Don was physically arrested by multiple officers as he waited for an elevator at his hotel, far away from MN.
That led to people questioning the intent of the arrest.

Why arrest Don at midnight?
Why send a dozen officers to arrest Don?
Why detain him at a federal courthouse for 12 hours, before releasing him?
Why not grant him permission for a phone call until the next day?
Why arrest him without the arresting officers carrying the warrant? They had to go outside and get an FBI agent to show Don the warrant on a phone.

These were not charges for committing a murder. Don had offered to turn himself in.

Link & Link & Link

 

[Ruminations]

And I think that Don's actual arrest was intended to be splashy. His lawyer had offered (as is often typical and allowed) for Don to turn himself in, if he was going to be arrested.

Then Don was physically arrested by multiple officers as he waited for an elevator at his hotel, far away from MN.
That led to people questioning the intent of the arrest.

Why arrest Don at midnight?
Why send a dozen officers to arrest Don?
Why detain him at a federal courthouse for 12 hours, before releasing him?
Why not grant him permission for a phone call until the next day?
Why arrest him without the arresting officers carrying the warrant? They had to go outside and get an FBI agent to show Don the warrant on a phone.

These were not charges for committing a murder. Don had offered to turn himself in.

Link & Link & Link

Don Lemon had previously offered to turn himself in with no drama, no squad (Mod snip) on overtime. But the feds declined to have him turn himself in and, on my tax dollars, had a large group arrest him off hours.

MOO

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

And the DA already dismissed the charges.

That’s good because, like in the Lemon case, the church interference charge doesn’t fit.

The state charge here was interference with religious observance.

Sec. 609.28 MN Statutes

www.revisor.mn.gov

§Subdivision 1.Interference. Whoever, by threats or violence, intentionally prevents another person from performing any lawful act enjoined upon or recommended to the person by the religion which the person professes is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Subd. 2.Physical interference prohibited. A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who intentionally and physically obstructs any individual's access to or egress from a religious establishment.

Very similar to the Face Act, the violation requires threats or use of force or violence, or physical obstruction of ingress or egress. None of the reports said anything like that happened.

WE can all go round and round about this. The allegation is that the protesters did illegally interfere with the church service. As far as I know, this is not reasonably disputed. What is disputed is whether DL and his associate did as well. The arguments are all well set out. Lets just wait and see what happens.

It certainly has been disputed by me at least. For the same reason as in the above charge, that the law requires specific actions for a violation that don't appear to be present here.

moo

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

IMO that is splitting hairs. The sermon/worship ended prematurely because the protesters interrupted it. So yeah, it was over, but it wasn't meant to be. That doesn't mean Mr. Lemon sat idly by respectfully waiting for service to end. It means he waited for the protesters to interrupt the service and then pounced with his microphone and questions.

Simply interrupting a service is not a federal violation.

This thread is pages and pages long with many explaining what they believe and apparently the DOJ believe was illegal about that. You choose to interpret his actions and the law differently.

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances & Places of Religious Worship

the same act that prevents right to life protesters from storming clinics that offer abortions and/or reproductive health to women, from disrupting, intimidating clientele or otherwise interfering with the clinic's ability to serve their function.

The act has been identified many times. Just because you disagree with the answer you've been given does not mean you weren't provided one.

Yes, that law has been cited many times. I will quote it once again here.

18 U.S. Code § 248 - Freedom of access to clinic entrances

www.law.cornell.edu

The law prohibits anyone who:

“by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

And it defines the terms above as:

(2) Interfere with.—The term "interfere with" means to restrict a person's freedom of movement.
(3) Intimidate.—The term "intimidate" means to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm to him- or herself or to another.
(4) Physical obstruction.— The term “physical obstruction” means rendering impassable ingress to or egress from a facility that provides reproductive health services or to or from a place of religious worship, or rendering passage to or from such a facility or place of religious worship unreasonably difficult or hazardous.

Nobody here has yet been able to show where Don Lemon commits any act that would qualify as a violation of the above.

The Indictment does try to claim Lemon does do so but his video clearly refutes those allegations.

Why would they need to lie in their indictment if they have a good case?

He cautioned people/protesters in the car he was riding to the protest in several times not to reveal where they were headed because he was livestreaming. That IMO took him out of the role of observer and into the role of active participant.

I appreciate that we can differ in our views and have a civil discourse. Thank you for that.

As has also been mentioned here, embargoes are a standard part of journalism. It was also mentioned in this posted story, with agreement from Todd Blanche.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/01/don-lemon-todd-blanche-press-religion-00759255

Blanche also appeared to take issue with Lemon “surreptitiously” avoiding saying where the demonstrators were going during the livestream. But host Dana Bash pushed back, pointing out that there are “countless” examples of reporters in the middle of a story being instructed not to tell anybody where we’re going.

“There are numerous examples of when we get embargoed information that we can’t report from your agency, for example, and that has happened with presidents in both parties, and we withhold reporting it until you say it’s time to report it,” Bash said. “That’s not unusual. And it’s not unlike what happened with Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.”

Blanche replied, “Well, listen, you are totally correct that that happens every day and it’s happened for decades.”

moo

 

[tlcya]

Simply interrupting a service is not a federal violation.



Yes, that law has been cited many times. I will quote it once again here.

18 U.S. Code § 248 - Freedom of access to clinic entrances

www.law.cornell.edu

The law prohibits anyone who:

“by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

And it defines the terms above as:

(2) Interfere with.—The term "interfere with" means to restrict a person's freedom of movement.
(3) Intimidate.—The term "intimidate" means to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm to him- or herself or to another.
(4) Physical obstruction.— The term “physical obstruction” means rendering impassable ingress to or egress from a facility that provides reproductive health services or to or from a place of religious worship, or rendering passage to or from such a facility or place of religious worship unreasonably difficult or hazardous.

Nobody here has yet been able to show where Don Lemon commits any act that would qualify as a violation of the above.

The Indictment does try to claim Lemon does do so but his video clearly refutes those allegations.

Why would they need to lie in their indictment if they have a good case?



As has also been mentioned here, embargoes are a standard part of journalism. It was also mentioned in this posted story, with agreement from Todd Blanche.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/01/don-lemon-todd-blanche-press-religion-00759255

moo

we will continue to disagree on this case. and that is fine. Your opinion is yours. mine is mine.

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

Apologies if this has been discussed already, but since Pam Bondi has been fired by Trump, is it likely some of these cases will be dropped? An acquittal of Lemon will only result in more bad publicity for Trump.

I doubt the case was brought only because of Bondi. The whole DOJ leadership seems to be supportive. All the politically appointed leaders are for it, but the rank and file not so much. None of the career prosecutors from the charging division are involved in this case.

The entire civil rights division has lost lots of their prosecutors.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/19/g-s1-66906/trump-civil-rights-justice-exodus

And that has been the story for the entire DOJ for this administration. There has been a huge atypical exodus of attorneys.

https://www.americanbar.org/advocacy/governmental_legislative_work/publications/washingtonletter/november-25-wl/outside-the-gao-1125wl/

They have also been dropping lots more cases than usual.

Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration

Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ abandoned a record number of cases — including hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime and drugs — in just the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term.

www.propublica.org

But I doubt they will drop this case until forced to by the court.

moo

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

As far as I'm aware, the general public has not seen all the evidence mentioned in the charging docs.
I look forward to that evidence being made available.

No one here can answer that because we haven't seen the same evidence mentioned in the charging docs.

We have enough evidence to know that there are allegations in the indictment that are flat out false. Examples have been cited several times. For example, once AGAIN, from the indictment,

Overt Act # 40: At one point, defendant LEMON posted himself at the main door of the Church, where he confronted some congregants and physically obstructed them as they tried to exit the Church building to challenge them with “facts” about U.S. immigration policy.

bbm

There is no super secret evidence or camera angle that is going to show that allegation is true. See for yourself if you haven’t, this link is cued to when that is supposed to happen

Don Lemon's video

Why are they telling lies in the indictment if they have a good case? Mind you, they have even amended the indictment and could have corrected it but they just repeated the same lies.

Anyone who claims to know he's guilty can't really say so if they are only relying on evidence they have not seen.

moo

 

[PrairieWind]

That’s good because, like in the Lemon case, the church interference charge doesn’t fit.

The state charge here was interference with religious observance.

Sec. 609.28 MN Statutes

www.revisor.mn.gov

Very similar to the Face Act, the violation requires threats or use of force or violence, or physical obstruction of ingress or egress. None of the reports said anything like that happened.



It certainly has been disputed by me at least. For the same reason as in the above charge, that the law require specific actions to be a violation that don't appear to be present here.

moo

Did the protesters cause passage to or from such the church unreasonably difficult or hazardous? Yes. the Aisles were blocked to the main entrance. Some church goers either felt unable to leave or used the other exits, one of which was injured in doing so. So that element is clearly and factually met. The Federal charges will stand. Even if the US Dist Ct dismisses, I have no doubt the Circuit Court (and certainly the SCOTUS) will overturn that.

 

[Smelly Squirrel]

Did the protesters cause passage to or from such the church unreasonably difficult or hazardous? Yes. the Aisles were blocked to the main entrance.

Please cite any evidence that proves any of this.

Some church goers either felt unable to leave or used the other exits, one of which was injured in doing so. So that element is clearly and factually met.

A "feeling" does not make a "clearly" met element.

The Federal charges will stand. Even if the US Dist Ct dismisses, I have no doubt the Circuit Court (and certainly the SCOTUS) will overturn that.

This is based on what exactly? You can't cite prior cases because this is the first prosecution of its kind. In fact, prior prosecutions of the Face Act for the abortion clinic clause show how weak this case is in comparison. The violations in those are much more obvious. For example:

US vs Handy et al

Defendants in that case used chairs and chains to block doors.

US v. Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, et al.

Defendants lied on the floor in front of doors to block them. They were told to leave and never did even when police showed up and told them to.

US vs Thomas

Defendants sat in front of doors and refused to leave even when police showed up.

Defendants in those cases were also repeat offenders for the same thing showing clear willful intent.

Nothing like the above is present in this case. You can even tell by looking at this indictment that the hacks who wrote it likely just copied and pasted some language from the prior Face Act complaints and then tried to force fit the actions here into it much like this,

moo

 

[SouthAussie]

Did the protesters cause passage to or from such the church unreasonably difficult or hazardous? Yes. the Aisles were blocked to the main entrance. Some church goers either felt unable to leave or used the other exits, one of which was injured in doing so. So that element is clearly and factually met. The Federal charges will stand. Even if the US Dist Ct dismisses, I have no doubt the Circuit Court (and certainly the SCOTUS) will overturn that.

The protesters did different things than the things Don did.
Don is always seen standing off to the side - not blocking anyone.

imo

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

No one here can answer that because we haven't seen the same evidence mentioned in the charging docs.

But the poster was responding directly to a post that said "The evidence is clear, it is in DL videos, the statements of the church members." If the evidence is clear, and it's in the videos, then a timestamp can be provided.

MOO.

 

[Ontario Mom]

We have enough evidence to know that there are allegations in the indictment that are flat out false. Examples have been cited several times. For example, once AGAIN, from the indictment,



bbm

There is no super secret evidence or camera angle that is going to show that allegation is true. See for yourself if you haven’t, this link is cued to when that is supposed to happen

Don Lemon's video

Why are they telling lies in the indictment if they have a good case? Mind you, they have even amended the indictment and could have corrected it but they just repeated the same lies.

Anyone who claims to know he's guilty can't really say so if they are only relying on evidence they have not seen.

moo

Okay. Clearly, we disagree on this case. That's okay.

jmo