Dem
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GOP
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For 17 years, Don Lemon wa a journalist for CNN. On April 24, 2023, he was fired by the network. His fireable offense was saying that Nikki Haley is past her prime, which is almost certainly true in the sense she is very unlikely to ever again to have a job as important as governor of a state or ambassador to the United Nations. But for the political correctness police, this was a no-no and he was out.
Now Lemon is an independent journalist with his own online show on YouTube. On Jan. 18, 2026, he followed a protest group into a church in St. Paul, MN, to cover the protest. The group was planning to protest the fact that one of the pastors was an ICE agent. On Friday, Lemon was arrested and charged with violating federal law. Pam Bondi ordered the arrest and then bragged about in on eX-Twitter:
The first question Lemon's arrest raises is: Why did it take 12 days to arrest him? It turns out that Bondi first went to a magistrate judge to get a warrant for his arrest and the judge refused. Then she went to the chief judge of the Minnesota Federal District Court who said there was no evidence Lemon had committed a crime. So, in desperation, she went to a grand jury to get an indictment, and that took some time. The judges' refusals could have been a hint to her that when a journalist covers news, even news she doesn't like, it is not a crime.
It is very unlikely that this case will ever get to a jury, as the judge on the case is likely to throw it out, but that is not the point. The point is to intimidate journalists who speak truth to power. Bondi and her boss don't like that, so somebody had to be the poster child for the consequences of reporting on things Donald Trump doesn't want in the news. Lemon is Black, so that was one strike against him to start with. His being fired by a news organization (albeit for offending the left) was another strike. Being at a protest that interfered with a church service was strike three. So Bondi called him out.
Lemon immediately hired one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country, Abbe Lowell. Reporters who work for news organizations that will pay for their defense probably won't scare easily, but reporters who don't work for a powerful news organization and can't pay a high-powered lawyer themselves may think twice about writing stories that Bondi won't like. That is the point, of course. Lemon, himself was not cowed at all. After his arrest, he said: "I will not stop now. I will not stop ever. In fact, there is no more important time but right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on truth and holds those in power accountable."
CNN was furious, even though Lemon no longer works for the network. It issued a statement reading: "The FBl's arrest of our former CNN colleague Don Lemon raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment. The Department of Justice already failed twice to get an arrest warrant for Don and several other journalists in Minnesota, where a chief judge of the Minnesota Federal District Court found there was 'no evidence' that there was any criminal behavior involved in their work." The network also said it would be following the case closely.
Gabe Rottman, VP of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press told CNN: "Historically, the limited number of cases that have been brought against a journalist documenting a protest on private property have been handled as trespass cases at the state level. Those charges are almost always dropped, or if the cases go to trial, the journalists typically prevail."
Amnesty International put out a statement saying: "Journalism is not a crime. Reporting on protests is not a crime. Arresting journalists for their reporting is a clear example of an authoritarian practice." Other freedom-of-the-press groups are also putting out similar statements. (V)