Don Lemon Set To Go Before Judge After Arrest Last Night; White House Mocks Ex-CNN Anchor: “When Life Gives You Lemons…”
EXCLUSIVE: Don Lemon will appear before a federal judge this afternoon in downtown LA after being arrested by federal agents late Thursday night. While the charges against the former CNN anchor remain sealed by the Department of Justice and have yet to appear in a court docket, Lemon is being held in federal custody.
Earlier Friday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that Lemon was facing “Conspiracy to Deprive Rights, and …Violation of the FACE, interfering by force of someone’s First Amendment rights.”
Expected to show up in court at around 1 pm PT, Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles on Thursday evening. The arrest was in connection with an anti-ICE protest at a Minneapolis church earlier this month that Lemon covered, his lawyer Abbe Lowell said this morning. The former CNN anchor was in L.A. to cover this weekend’s Grammy Awards when he was arrested.
When asked about Lemon at a press conference Friday on more Jeffrey Epstein material being released, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche replied in typical Trump administration fashion: ‘Do you want me to jump up and down?” Also in typical Trump distraction mode, the long delaying DOJ dumped boatloads of documents related to the case of one-time Trump party pal and convicted sex offender Epstein. Flooding the zone after more than a month of violating the law over the release of teh so-called Epstein Files, the DOJ also suddenly put out more than 2,000 videos and nearly 200,000 images connected to the deceased and well connected financier.
Detailing how much of Lemon’s situation is in the legal shadows, LA Mayor Karen Bass said this morning that she had “reached out to the U.S. Attorney to check on Don Lemon’s status.” The Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department had no knowledge of where Lemon was being held when contacted by Deadline. We have reached out to the FBI’s Los Angeles office and will update this story if/when they respond.
Sources close to the journalist tell us that Lemon is in a federal facility in DTLA. The nature of the hearing that Lemon is expected to attend later today will likely be a straightforward arraignment.
A Trump foe herself, Bass added in her statement on Lemon : “The arrest of journalists for going into a church in the course of reporting is shocking enough, but what’s even more alarming is that it’s no secret that Don Lemon is a Trump critic. Let me be very clear – President Trump is not deescalating anything after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents. In fact, the arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort demonstrates quite the opposite – he is escalating.”
Coming on the planned National Shutdown day of protests over the killing of American citizens by ICE agents in Minneapolis and other violence, abductions, and deportations by the feds, Lemon’s arrest is the last cumulaion of antagonism between the journalist and the MAGA crowd.
After announcements of Lemon’s arrest by Pam Bondi and others, the White House unsurprisingly took to social media to mock him and this latest outocome.
This isn’t the first time this month that the Trump administration has gone after Lemon personally.
DOJ had tried to arrest Lemon and the other journalists earlier this week, but a federal magistrate judge earlier this week turned down arrest warrants for five people connected to the protest. At the time, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko said prosecutors had failed to present evidence to justify their arrests.
But in a case of try, try and try again typical to the Trump administration’s attitude to its critics, last night’s arrest of Lemon makes it very clear the journalist was still considered a thorn in their thin skinned paw.
Lemon has said he was working as a journalist when he had followed protesters into the Twin Cities church on January 18 to observe the demonstration against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the city. Inside the church, Lemon captured video and interviewed ICE protesters.
Covering ICE crackdowns and similar federal moves over the past, Lemonhas said that he “had no affiliation” to the protest organization. “I didn’t even know they were going to this church until we followed them. We were there chronicling protests,” he said.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different from what he has always done,” Lowell said.
“The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable,” Lowell said in a statement. “There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing his work.”
Attorney General Bondi has been touting the DOJ’s arrest of a number of demonstrators, and posted on X Friday, “At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. More details soon.”
