A federal magistrate judge on Thursday rejected the Justice Department’s effort to bring charges against former CNN anchor Don Lemon over his role covering Sunday’s anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church, Fox News Digital has learned.
Lemon livestreamed as left-wing activists entered St. Paul’s Cities Church, saying they believed the pastor had cooperated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On the stream, Lemon told viewers that “the freedom to protest” is central to the First Amendment.
The rejection comes after Attorney General Pamela Bondi said “no one is above the law” following the incident. The Justice Department could “find other avenues to charge Lemon,” CBS News reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
“The magistrate’s reported actions confirm the nature of Don’s First Amendment protected work this weekend in Minnesota as a reporter,” Lemon’s attorney Abbe Lowell told Fox News Digital. Lowell said Lemon’s actions were consistent with decades of on-the-ground reporting and described any continued pursuit by prosecutors as a “stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job.” He added Lemon would fight any charges “vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
One of the protest organizers, Nekima Levy Armstrong, was arrested Thursday. She appeared in Lemon’s footage and was interviewed by him before the protest escalated.
Bondi later posted on X: “Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP.”
Lemon has repeatedly said he had “no affiliation to that organization” and “didn’t even know they were going to this church until we followed them there.” However, video he posted on YouTube suggested he may have had at least some awareness of the group’s plan.
“We don’t know what’s happening. We kind of do, but we don’t know how it’s going to play out … we’ll get to see what happens after this, sort of surprise,” Lemon told viewers while traveling to the church. He later added, “We just found out about this this morning,” and said he was weighing whether he should go inside to understand what happened.
Once he arrived, Lemon told his crew he intended to “go inside and give the rundown on what’s going on,” but instructed his driver and cameraman not to step onto church property.
“I’m just gonna walk in, see what’s happening,” he said as he entered.
Audio from Lemon’s feed appeared to capture the pastor speaking before the service was disrupted by shouting. Lemon then told viewers protesters had entered as the scene devolved into chaos. His cameraman later went inside to continue livestreaming.
“I’m a journalist,” Lemon told a churchgoer amid the disruption.
Lemon documented what he described as a hostile takeover of the church, calling it a “clandestine mission.”
“You have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable. That’s what this country is about,” he said.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, had previously suggested Lemon could face serious consequences, arguing that being a journalist is not necessarily a “shield” if a person becomes a participant in criminal conduct.
Dhillon said Lemon was presumed innocent, but claimed his own public comments raised questions about whether he knew what would happen inside.
“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility,” Dhillon said in an interview with Benny Johnson on Monday. “He went into the facility, and then he began ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy.”
Lemon has defended his reporting and said he has faced online threats because of the coverage.
“It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there,” he said in a statement. Lemon also described “violent threats,” along with homophobic and racist slurs directed at him online and amplified by what he called parts of the right-wing media.
He added that if outrage is being “manufactured,” it would be better directed toward investigating the death of Renee Nicole Good—an issue he said was central to why people protested.
“I stand by my reporting,” Lemon said.
