Former CNN host Don Lemon remains defiant after he pleaded not guilty to charges related to the viral protest takeover of a Minnesota church last month.
“This isn’t just about me. This is about all journalists, especially here in the United States,” Lemon said outside the courthouse Friday.
“For more than 30 years I’ve been a journalist, and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work,” Lemon told reporters. “The events before my arrest and what’s happened since show that people are finally realizing what this administration is all about. The process is the punishment with them.”
“And like all of you here in Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I will not be intimidated. I will not back down. I will fight these baseless charges and I will not be silenced,” he added.
Lemon, who last month livestreamed anti-ICE agitators storming St. Paul’s Cities Church under the suspicion that its pastor had collaborated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was charged with conspiracy to deprive religious freedom rights and a violation of the FACE Act. Prosecutors did not seek to detain Lemon.
Lemon was arraigned alongside far-left agitators including William Kelly and Nekima Levy Armstrong, who have been accused of helping organize the church takeover. All five people arraigned on Friday pleaded not guilty.
DON LEMON’S LENGTHY HISTORY OF ANTI-ICE RHETORIC
Lemon has insisted he was working as a journalist and was not part of the group that harassed churchgoers. He is represented by Abbe Lowell, who previously represented Hunter Biden, and Joe Thompson, who was the lead prosecutor who helped uncover the massive $250 million Feeding Our Future food fraud case tied to the state’s Somali community. Thompson resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in January.
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While documenting the hostile invasion of the church, Lemon called 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,” Lemon said.
Agitators disrupted the religious service and “intimidated, harassed, oppressed, and terrorized the parishioners, including young children, and caused the service to be cut short,” according to a federal affidavit.
Churchgoers told law enforcement that members of their parish attempted to retrieve their children from a childcare area located downstairs, but the agitators were blocking the stairs, and the parents were unable to get to their children. One churchgoer later expressed fear that the agitators may have guns underneath their jackets and noted that aisles were blocked, making it difficult to leave.
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship.
Lemon, who was fired by CNN in 2023 and then went the independent route, has seen his profile grow since the arrest, including an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and a surge in his subscribers.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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