Two weeks after Don Lemon reported on an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church, federal agents arrested the former CNN anchor in Los Angeles as he was preparing to cover the Grammys, prompting several free press organizations and journalists to sound the alarm over the Trump administration’s “anti-free speech” crackdown.
“Journalism is not a crime,” both the National Press Club and PEN America said in statements on Friday morning.
One political reporter who texted The Independent shortly after Lemon’s arrest called this the “most anti-free speech administration in our lifetimes and then some,” adding that after the Washington Post raid earlier this month, it is “just one escalation after another, week to week.”
The arrest of Lemon, alongside fellow independent journalist Georgia Fort and several other protesters, comes after both a magistrate judge and a federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to bring charges against the 59-year-old ex-CNN star.
Lemon was on hand when a demonstration broke out at a St. Paul church on January 18, during which protesters disrupted a Sunday service and expressed opposition to one of its pastors working with a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. Lemon, who now has a YouTube show, did not take part in the protest but instead covered it for his program and interviewed both demonstrators and one of the church’s pastors.
After Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko refused to sign the initial criminal complaint against Lemon, the DOJ appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, but its appeal was rejected again. Chief Judge Patrick J. Schlitz – a former clerk for Antonin Scalia and a George W. Bush appointee – said that Lemon and his producer “were not protesters at all” and there was “no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”
However, with Lemon long being in the crosshairs of Trump and the MAGA media ecosystem over his criticism of the president, the administration continued to pursue charges and make legal threats against the former primetime anchor – culminating in Lemon’s arrest on Thursday evening.
“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,” Attorney General Pam Bondi tweeted on Friday morning. “More details soon.”
The administration and Trump’s allies immediately celebrated the arrest online, including the White House’s official social media account, which posted an image of Lemon with the caption “when life gives you lemons” and an emoji of chains. Katie Miller, the MAGA influencer and spouse of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, boasted that Lemon was indicted by a grand jury while sharing a homophobic attack on the openly gay journalist.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lemon’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
“This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court,” he added.
Meanwhile, the news that Trump’s DOJ had jailed a journalist whom the president has long held public animosity towards, all for reporting on a protest, sparked several press freedom groups to warn about the administration’s “dangerous” attacks on free speech and the media.
“Jailing a journalist for doing their job is dangerous — not only for press freedom, but for the public’s right to know. When reporters risk arrest for documenting events of public interest, the result is fewer witnesses, less accountability, and a more uninformed public,” National Press Club President Mark Schoeff, Jr. said.
“Journalism is not a crime,” Schoeff stated. “Arresting or detaining journalists for covering protests, public events, or government actions represents a grave threat to press freedom and risks chilling reporting nationwide. The world is watching closely, and the implications of this case extend far beyond any one reporter.”
Noting that this arrest comes days after the federal raid of a Washington Post reporter’s home, PEN America's journalism and disinformation program director Tim Richardson noted that once again the “Trump administration has trampled the First Amendment” before calling for the DOJ to toss out the case against Lemon.
“The fact that a federal magistrate judge and a federal appeals court already rejected the evidence against Lemon makes his arrest all the more troubling, putting on full display the continued misuse of government power to deflect accountability and intimidate a free press,” Richardson said. “Don Lemon is a journalist, and journalists have the right to gather news. We call on the government to drop all charges. Journalism is not a crime.”
“The government’s arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort are naked attacks on freedom of the press,” Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern said in a statement, adding: “The answer to this outrageous attack is not fear or self-censorship. It’s an even stronger commitment to journalism, the truth, and the First Amendment. If the Trump administration thinks it can bully journalists into submission, it is wrong.”
In her reaction to the arrest, Katherine Jacobsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists stated that “we know that the treatment of journalists is an indicator of the condition of a country's democracy” and the “United States is doing poorly.”
Executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute Jameel Jaffer also urged the DOJ to drop its prosecution of Lemon and Fort, calling their arrests “extremely alarming” since multiple judges refused to approve warrants against them. “We are especially concerned about these arrests because they take place against the background of a broader effort by the Trump administration to tighten the vise around press freedom,” Jaffer declared.
Calling the arrests “another attack” on press freedom, Reporters Without Borders executive director Clayton Weimers said: “The Trump administration cannot send federal agents after reporters simply because they don't like the stories being reported — especially after already failing multiple times to obtain a warrant from the courts for Lemon's arrest. Lemon and Fort should be released immediately.”
Also demanding that the charges against Lemon and Fort be dropped, Free Press Action Advocacy Director Jenna Ruddock stated that these “latest arrests are just the latest in a long line of First Amendment violations by the Trump administration” and “should outrage our leading media organizations, our elected officials and the public alike.”
Meanwhile, other journalists rallied behind Lemon, calling on others to speak out on his behalf – particularly those who have painted themselves as free speech absolutists.
“Seriously, i'd like to hear a single peep from the Twitter Files crew bout the Don [Lemon] arrest. you may not like Don. You may find the church protest stunt stupid. you may be fine arresting the protestors. But live streaming and covering it is a 1st amendment right you should ostensibly support,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein tweeted.
Notably, current CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was one of the prominent figures whom Elon Musk commissioned to review documents from the social media giant that would supposedly show that the government coerced the previous ownership to censor content and politically boost Joe Biden and Democrats, a claim Twitter’s own lawyers refuted.
Additionally, Lemon's former journalistic home for 17 years came to his defense and to that of press freedom. "The FBl’s arrest of our former CNN colleague Don Lemon raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment," CNN said in a statement.
"The First Amendment in the United States protects journalists who bear witness to news and events as they unfold, ensuring they can report freely in the public interest, and the DOJ's attempts to violate those rights is unacceptable."
The Latest: Justice Department releasing 3 million pages from its Jeffrey Epstein files
Journalist goes live as FBI arrests her over Minnesota church protest
Inside the city of fear under siege from Trump’s ICE agents
Melania documentary live: Critics hammer ‘vapid’ film playing to near-empty theaters
Epstein documents live: DOJ publishes 3 millions of new pages from the case files
Disabled man dies after his caretaker father was detained by ICE in Dallas
