Former CNN anchor Don Lemon taken into custody, sources say

[eShirl]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/us/don-lemon-arrest-minnesota-church-protest.html

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Mr. Lemon, vowed to fight the charges.

“Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards,” Mr. Lowell said in a statement on Friday. “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done.”

Mr. Lowell added, “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.”

Mr. Lemon is scheduled to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday morning. Now that he has been arrested, he is likely to challenge the prosecution’s case by arguing that he was not protesting, but rather covering the event as a journalist.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/don-lemon-in-custody-former-cnn-anchor-sources-say/

Former cable news anchor Don Lemon was arrested last night, multiple sources with direct knowledge tell CBS News. A source familiar says a grand jury was empaneled on this yesterday. FBI and HSI were involved in the arrest, sources say.

It was not immediately clear what charges he would be facing. CBS News has reached out to Lemon's representatives and the Department of Justice for comment.

[thomski64]

1. ..reporting while black?

[Liberal In Texas]

2. Exactly! n/t

[Geechie]

34. or just getting in Nikki Minaj's crosshairs

She is Der Furor's new BFF.

[FalloutShelter]

35. Reporting while black and gay... a twofer.

Damn them to hell.

[malaise]

3. WTF?

Madness

[HipChick]

31. Crazy

Insane
I see this back firing on them..

[Arazi]

4. Intimidation. Sending a message to every journalist that reporting on MN will cost you

Don Lemon has the resources to fight this.

Many hundreds of others who are simply citizen journalists without any large organizations behind them, won’t be able to fight these suppression tactics

[Swede]

5. Yet two people were shot dead and no one was arrested.

What a horrible thing happened when Trump got elected.

[underpants]

8. Exactly

[yardwork]

10. Yes.

[JustAnotherGen]

30. Three

Keith Porter Jr was murdered by an off duty one on New Years Eve.

[Lovie777]

6. This will back fire as well......

[GoCubsGo]

14. Yup, and they'll have yet another lawsuit on their hands.

One more in the thousands they already have. That, on top of turning Don Lemon into a hero.

Thank goodness they are so fucking stupid...

[sop]

21. Exactly.

Arresting a rich, famous, black, (former) cable news anchor for reporting on protests in a church. No doubt Trump ordered the arrest as payback for something mean Lemon said about him. It's insanity. No sane prosecutor would take this into court.

[NewHendoLib]

7. Fascism is here.

[Ray Bruns]

9. The charges are He's brown and he doesn't like Trump.

[rpannier]

15. Left out a serious offense

Making the Admin look bad by showing their incompetence and criminality

[orangecrush]

11. I don't see a political solution to this situation.

[chicoescuela]

13. Agree

Only one way out

[somsai]

19. It's a legal issue and determination is made in courts with our judicial system

Politics is an entirely different thing.

[littlemissmartypants]

25. Are you ok, oc?

[newdeal2]

12. Let's see if legacy media fights back

I have serious doubts.

[rpannier]

16. I see 1 of 2 possibilities

1. They adopt the Sen Collins position and let the admin know they are "concerned"
or
2. Strongly worded letter

[BootinUp]

17. Is the story saying that the Grand Jury indicted him? I find that very hard to believe. nt

[Tanuki]

20. No, it just said that the jury was empaneled,

meaning they were selected and sworn in.

[patphil]

18. They don't want reporters documenting what they do to the demonstrators.

[MustLoveBeagles]

28. Right

Plus dump has a personal vendetta against him.

[Conjuay]

37. Shit, tRump has a personal vendetta against EVERYONE.

[MustLoveBeagles]

39. This is true

But Don's got three things going against him. He's a gay black journalist. A trifecta.

[Botany]

22. Unconstitutional Fascism .. I hope that night in jail is gonna cost the DoJ (aka the American people) tons

Don Lemmon has the Constitutionally right to report the news as he sees it. I hope he sues the
shit out of the DoJ.

Btw where are the Epstein files? Weren’t they supposed to be released on 12/19/26.

[multigraincracker]

23. I would hope everyone donate and join the

ACLU.
Also, a great field of law for young budding law students to consider.

[OGBuzz]

24. Another step towards ending objective journalism.

Lemon was interviewing people inside the church, he was not protesting. Eventually only regime approved propaganda and worshipping of dear leader will be tolerated. Just check out those vomit inducing monthly cabinet meetings, that's their final goal.

[littlemissmartypants]

26. Just raised his, Don Lemon's, profile and created a drag on their own.

[PCIntern]

27. He is in their perverse thinking, a perfect target not only

Because he’s black, formerly from CNN, AND because he is also openly gay.

These Nazi bastards are gonna do anything and everything like cornered RATS. And they are as dangerous.

[Ferrets are Cool]

29. At worst, it was a misdemeanor. Another clear miscarriage of this administration.

[ScratchCat]

36. No

They are trying to charge him with federal civil rights violations. That's how they have claimed jurisdiction here, because trespassing is a State or local law and they have to invent some federal issue. Without a complaint from the Church, they are "defending" the civil rights of the Church-goers. This is their craziness. It will be dismissed outright by a court. The church will have to take a legal stance at some point, and it would be dumb to try to push this. Without the church being involved, this will be ultimately dismissed. But the intent is to intimidate, nothing more. They know these charges will be dismissed.

[OLDMDDEM]

32. If he was white, this wouldn't have happened.

[Martin Eden]

33. Bondi says Lemon was arrested in connection with a "coordinated attack" on the church.

I've checked a few news sources, but couldn't find any mention of how many parishoners or clergy were injured in the attack, or property damage to the church.

They called the attack "horrendous" -- so I assume it must have been violent enough for the Justice Dept of the United States to issue arrest warrants for federal crime.

Obviously, they must have evidence of Mr. Lemon's involement in a criminal conspiracy to attack the church. If he was merely covering the protest, then followed them into the church in furtherance of journalistic coverage, there would be no grounds for charging him with a federal crime.

The attack must have been horrendous indeed for the Justice Dept to prioritize it over investigations into the murders of two American citizens in the streets of Minneapolis.

[UTUSN]

38. K&R

[womanofthehills]

40. Also arrested Georgia Fort - journalist who filmed it on Facebook

BREAKING: A new video is released by Georgia Fort of the moment when Trump's agents showed up at her door to arrest her.

Fort is an independent Twin Cities journalist. She was arrested filming and reporting on a protest at a St. Paul church.

Fort had already been arrested once before by federal agents for covering the same protest.

This is Trump’s America.

Like Don Lemon, Georgia Fort was arrested for journalism. When the federal government starts arresting reporters simply for documenting events of public concern, it sends a chilling message to every journalist in this country.

The First Amendment does not belong to Donald Trump or his administration. It exists to protect the press, to hold power accountable, and to ensure the public knows what is being done in its name. Arresting journalists for reporting is authoritarian behavior and we must call it out every time it happens”

Link to tweet

?s=46&t=YZgyyp4w_z7vW3neKxa6cQ

[LetMyPeopleVote]

41. Statement from Abbe Lowell

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

42. Statement from Abbe Lowell

Link to tweet

[Marcuse]

43. "We have much in common."

[Cha]

44. FREE DON LEMON! 💔☮️🌺🌻🕯️🕊️💜

[dawgdan]

45. Lemon

What's happened to my country? How far we have fallen to arrest a journalist for reporting.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

46. MaddowBlog-Trump's arrest of journalists is the latest front in his effort to Orbanize the media

That journalists have been criminally charged is a dramatic escalation, but it’s not coming out of nowhere.

The arrest of journalists is a dramatic escalation, but the pattern is straight out of Orban's script:
- suing outlets for reports Trump doesn’t like
- vowing punishments for outlets over polls he doesn’t like
- threatening to sic prosecutors and pull broadcast licenses
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-30T21:56:38.989Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-arrest-of-journalists-is-the-latest-front-in-his-effort-to-orbanize-the-media

“No one loves the First Amendment more than me,” the Republican claimed before condemning the nation’s free press. Journalists, he said, “have their own agenda and it’s not your agenda. … We’re gonna do something about it.”

The quote came to mind anew on Friday morning. MS NOW reported:

Two journalists, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon, and two people active in Democratic circles in Minnesota have been arrested by federal agents investigating an anti-ICE protest that disrupted a church service.

Lemon was in Los Angeles to cover the Grammy Awards when he was taken into custody Thursday.

There was a recent protest during Sunday services at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the disruption was reportedly driven by demonstrators’ belief that the church’s pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Soon after, federal agents arrested three of those involved with the protest, including civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong. Lemon, who was on hand for the developments, has now also been taken into custody, despite the longtime journalist’s insistence that he was at the church to cover the protest, not to participate in it.....

But as the details of the case emerge, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the larger context.

Trump’s approach to the freedom of the press has never been especially healthy — we are talking about a president who’s echoed Joseph Stalin in his attacks on journalists — but his campaign against the media has gotten especially aggressive in recent months.

In September, for example, the Republican suggested that “evening shows” are “not allowed” to criticize him and that networks that give him “only bad publicity” risk losing their broadcast licenses. At one point, the president went so far as to claim that broadcasters that air evening news programs are doing something “illegal” if the White House disapproves of their coverage......

That journalists have now been arrested is a dramatic escalation, but it’s not a development that came out of nowhere. On the contrary, Trump and his team have launched a systemic campaign against the nation’s free press that is without modern precedent in the United States — and it’s clearly getting worse.

In the run-up to Election Day 2024, Trump was nearly as eager to attack the free press as he was to attack Kamala Harris. The Republican referred to journalists as “the enemy of the people,” media outlets as “evil” and news professionals as “scum.”

But we’re well past the point of ugly taunts and name-calling. What we’re seeing is an authoritarian leader reading from the same playbook Viktor Orban used in Hungary, targeting journalists and journalism in the hopes of bringing it to heel.

In hindsight, “no one loves the First Amendment more than me” might very well be one of the most offensive lies Trump has ever told.