Don Lemon put ‘on notice’ for role in church protest in Minnesota

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been “notified” by the Justice Division after becoming a member of anti-ICE agitators who stormed a church in St. Paul throughout a service on Sunday.

Lemon, an impartial journalist since being fired from CNN in 2023, has been documenting the chaos in Minnesota following the deadly ICE taking pictures of Renee Nicole Good. He entered the Cities Church with anti-ICE agitators and started filming, telling viewers that “the liberty to protest” is what the First Modification is about.

However Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Division’s assistant lawyer basic for civil rights, disagrees with Lemon.

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Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been “notified” by the Justice Division. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos)

“A home of worship isn’t a public discussion board in your protest! It’s a area shielded from precisely such acts by federal legal and civil legal guidelines! Nor does the First Modification defend your pseudo-journalism from disrupting a prayer service. You might be on discover,” Dhillon wrote on X.

Dhillon additionally stated she is in touch with Lawyer Normal Pamela Bondi on the matter.

“We’re utterly over it. We’re investigating doable legal violations of federal regulation,” Dhillon wrote.

In an interview Chatting with Benny Johnson on Monday, Dhillon stated Lemon had a presumption of innocence, however that Lemon’s position as a journalist was not essentially a “protect” for him as a possible occasion to against the law.

“Don Lemon himself has come out and stated he knew precisely what was going to occur in that facility. He entered the ability after which started ‘doing journalism,’ as if that was some type of protect to be a part of a legal conspiracy,” Dhillon stated.

“That is not the case, and so we’re getting our act collectively, we’re getting the info straight, and this can be a very severe matter,” she continued. “Come subsequent Sunday, nobody in the US ought to assume they will get away with this. Everybody within the protest group must know that the best pressure of the federal authorities will come down to stop this and lock folks up for an extended, very long time.”

“The Don Lemon Present” didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

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Forward of Dhillon’s look on “The Benny Johnson Present,” Lemon responded to her social media publish, suggesting that the DOJ “investigating doable violations of the federal FACE Act by these folks desecrating a home of worship and interfering with Christian worshipers.”

“So I’ve no ties to that group. I did not even know they have been going to this church till we adopted them there. We have been there documenting protests. As soon as the protest began on the church, we did an act of journalism, reporting on it and speaking to the folks concerned, together with a pastor, members of the church and members of the group. That is it. It is referred to as journalism. First Modification, all that stuff, for all of you who consider within the First Modification, Absolutists, please,” Lemon stated in a video on Instagram.

“So why do not you speak to the precise particular person accountable for the group and whose thought it was to prepare protests on the church earlier than you begin blaming me for issues you haven’t any thought about? Thanks in your consideration to this problem,” he continued.

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Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after 17 years with the community and now hosts an impartial present.

Throughout his reporting on Sunday, Lemon requested a church chief what he considered the interruption. Lemon appeared to be speaking Cities Church lead pastor Jonathan Parnell, based on a picture on the church’s web site.

“That is unacceptable, it’s shameful. It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship,” the pastor responded. “I’ve to deal with my flock.”

Lemon replied that there’s one constitutional proper to freedom of expression and the liberty to assemble and protest.

“We’re right here to worship, we’re right here to worship Jesus, as a result of that’s the hope of those cities, that’s the hope of the world: Jesus Christ,” the pastor responded. “We’re right here to worship Jesus. That’s the reason we’re right here, that’s what we’re about.”

Lemon requested the pastor if he was attempting to speak to the anti-ICE agitators, and the pastor stated nobody was prepared to speak to him.

The pastor then requested Lemon to go away the church.

Cities Church didn’t instantly reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.

The FACE Act makes it’s a federal crime, carrying doable stiff fines and jail sentences, to make use of or threaten to make use of pressure to “injure, intimidate, or impede” an individual searching for reproductive well being care companies, or an individual lawfully trying to train the First Modification proper to non secular freedom in a spot of non secular worship. It additionally prohibits intentional property injury to an establishment offering reproductive well being care companies or to a spot of non secular worship.

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Anders Hagstrom and Hanna Panreck of Fox Information Digital contributed to this report.