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Former CNN host turned independent journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty to federal civil rights charges on Friday, following a protest at a Minnesota church where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official is a pastor. Four others also pleaded not guilty in the case.
Lemon did not comment to reporters as he entered the courthouse accompanied by his attorney Joe Thompson. Roughly two dozen protesters stood outside the building, chanting “Pam Bondi has got to go” and “Protect the press”.
Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong was among the defendants to plead not guilty. The prominent local activist was the subject of a doctored photo posted on official White House social media that falsely showed her crying during her arrest. The picture is part of a deluge of AI-altered imagery that has circulated since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Lemon’s attorney Abbe David Lowell told the judge that he will raise first amendment issues in the case. The veteran journalist has said he was at the church to chronicle the protest but was not a participant.
Lowell also asked for Lemon’s phone to be returned after it was taken from him during his arrest in Los Angeles. Prosecutors said the phone was in Department of Homeland Security custody, and that the search warrant for it was under seal. The phone could not be returned until the search process was completed, they said.
Two more defendants accused in the protest at a Southern Baptist church in Saint Paul are scheduled for arraignment next week, including another independent journalist, Georgia Fort. Nine people have been charged in the case.
Protesters interrupted a service at the Cities church on 18 January by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good”, referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis last month. Lemon has said he is not affiliated with the protest group and that he was there as a journalist to chronicle the event for his livestream show.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now. In fact, there is no more important time than right now, this very moment for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable,” Lemon told reporters after his arrest.
The church protest drew sharp complaints from conservative religious and political leaders. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, warned in a social media post: “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.” Even clergy who oppose the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics expressed discomfort with the protest.
All nine are charged under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits interference or intimidation of “any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the first amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship”. Penalties can range up to a year in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Thompson is one of several former prosecutors who have left the US attorney’s office in Minnesota in recent weeks citing frustration with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown in the state and the justice department’s response to the killing of Good and Pretti.
One of four lawyers registered to represent Lemon, Thompson had led the sprawling investigation of major public program fraud cases for the prosecutor’s office until he resigned last month. The Trump administration has cited the fraud cases, in which most defendants have come from the state’s large Somali community, as justification for its immigration crackdown.
