WASHINGTON — The former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested late Thursday night on charges that he violated federal law during a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, his lawyer said, in a case rejected last week by a magistrate judge.

Lemon has said he was simply reporting as a journalist when he entered the Cities Church on Jan. 18 to observe a demonstration against the immigration crackdown in the area.

The protesters interrupted a service at the church, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor, and chanted “ICE out.” Afterward, the Trump administration sought to charge eight people over the episode, including Lemon, citing a law that protects people seeking to participate in a service in a house of worship.

But the magistrate judge who reviewed the evidence approved charges against only three of the people, rejecting the evidence against Lemon and the others as insufficient. The Justice Department then petitioned a federal appeals court to force the judge to issue the additional warrants, only to be denied.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, vowed to fight the charges.

“Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards,” Lowell said in a statement. “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done.”

Lowell added, “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”

The Trump administration has pursued two criminal charges against the church protesters and Lemon — conspiring to deprive rights and interfering with someone’s religious freedom in a house of worship. In the larger fight over the White House’s aggressive immigration crackdown in that city, the Justice Department has pushed hard to charge people who participated in or were at the church protest.

The administration posted arrest photos of the first arrests over the church protest, and a White House social media account posted a doctored photo of one of the people to make it look as if she was crying.

Lemon is scheduled to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday. Now that he has been arrested, he is likely to challenge the prosecution’s case by arguing that he was not protesting, but rather covering the event as a journalist.

“Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon said in a recent video. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”

Lemon now works as an independent journalist and has his own YouTube show. He was pushed out of CNN in 2023 after 17 years at the cable network, amid criticism that he made sexist comments about women and aging. Lemon has been a longtime critic of President Donald Trump dating back to his first term, and frequently calls the president a liar.

Justice Department officials have vowed to prosecute protesters they claim have crossed a line from activity protected by the First Amendment to impeding law enforcement or, in the case of the church protest, violating others’ rights.

For their part, demonstrators who have turned out in force in Minneapolis have asserted that their rights are being violated as they try to speak out against the crackdown.

Another Journalist Indicted

On Friday morning, a prominent independent reporter in the Twin Cities, Georgia Fort, who had also filmed the protest at the church, said in a livestreamed video on Facebook that she was being arrested by federal agents.

Fort said in the video that agents had come to her door and that a grand jury had indicted her. She said she was about to surrender to them and be taken to the Whipple federal building that has become the headquarters for federal operations in Minneapolis.

“This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media,” she said in the video.

Tensions remain particularly high in Minneapolis after federal immigration agents fatally shot two protesters there. Renee Good, a mother of three, was behind the wheel of her car when an ICE agent fired at close range. Administration officials branded her a terrorist and claimed that she endangered the life of the agent.

In a separate episode, Customs and Border Protection agents on Saturday shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse. Videos from the scene undercut early claims by administration officials that Pretti approached the agents, brandishing a weapon.

Trump suggested on Wednesday that he was willing to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis, without providing details. He replaced the Border Patrol official who has been the public face of the aggressive immigration efforts in Minneapolis, Gregory Bovino, with his border czar, Tom Homan. Homan has signaled a willingness to reach an agreement with local officials and draw down the thousands of federal agents sent there.

The arrest of Lemon comes against the backdrop of turmoil inside the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis. At a tense meeting earlier this week, a number of prosecutors challenged the head of the office about the administration’s decision not to pursue investigations of the shootings by federal agents, according to people familiar with the internal discussions. At least a half dozen prosecutors have resigned, and more departures are expected.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has called on other federal prosecutors’ offices in the Midwest to send temporary reinforcements to help investigate and prosecute cases.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Hamed Aleaziz, Devlin Barrett and Alan Feuer/Kelter Davis
c. 2026 The New York Times Company