How's it going America,
CNN anchor turned podcaster Don Lemon was arrested in Los Angeles on Thursday night over the church storming of the Christian Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He participated in the action, staged by a group calling it Operation Pull Up, interviewing agitators like Nekima Armstrong and William Kelly outside before joining them inside.
He took part in the mayhem by waylaying the pastor and demanding he answer for the ICE-affiliation of a pastor who wasn't even at church that day. He held the pastor up even as the pastor asked him to leave. The pastor said he had to take care of his family and his parish, but Lemon kept on yammering at him, shoving a microphone in his face. He went after others, too, demanding they talk to him. Many of them told him that storming into a church and disrupting services was not a protest but a violation of their rights.
Charges against Lemon could come under the FACE Act which lists as "prohibited activities" 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." The FACE Act prevents the same behavior for "reproductive health services."
Don Lemon's high-profile attorney Abbe Lowell posted a statement, saying that Lemon "has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work."
I totally disagree that Lemon, in obstructing church services, was holding "those in power accountable." The pastor of a little Twin Cities church is not exactly "the man," or "the establishment." He's just a guy trying to share the word of God with people who want to share it. Lowell then complains that the DOJ isn't investigating those federal agents who were involved in the shootings of agitators in Minneapolis over the past few weeks. He doesn't note that two of the agents involved in the shooting death of Alex Pretti have been placed on leave or that the incident is being investigated. The agent in the Good shooting is not being investigated.
Attorney General Pam Bondi released a brief statement herself, saying, "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." Armstrong and others had already been arrested.
The feds had previously tried to get an arrest warrant for Lemon, but three rounds of filings with judges failed. Lemon could make an appearance in court on Friday after the midnight arrest.
Libby