Magistrate Refuses To File Charges Against Don Lemon For Reporting Protest

On Thursday, a Minnesota magistrate declined to sign a Department of Justice complaint charging journalist Don Lemon with reporting on a protest at a St. Paul church on Sunday.

According to CBS News, Attorney General Pam Bondi and several other legal officials with the Trump administration are furious with the magistrate’s decision. “The attorney general is enraged at the magistrate’s decision,” an unnamed source connected to Attorney General Pam Bondi told CBS News. 

On Sunday, a group of protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul after it was revealed that David Easterwood, one of the church’s pastors at the church, leads one of ICE’s field offices. The protesters chanted “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good” during the Sunday service. Tensions have been high in Minneapolis all month after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a mother of three. 

Don Lemon defended his presence at the church in a video posted to social media. “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 the video. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”

Despite the magistrate declining to file charges, a senior Justice Department official told The New York Times that they will still pursue other avenues to bring a case against Don Lemon. In an interview with far-right podcaster Benny Johnson, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, has said that Lemon could still face charges for being present at the protest. Dhillon said that being a journalist “is not a badge or a shield that protects you from criminal consequences.”

I guess those badges only exist for poorly trained ICE agents and President Donald Trump. 

Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, released a statement promising to contest any charges the DOJ may try to file. “Should the Department of Justice continue with a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job, Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court,” Lowell wrote.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have put more effort into investigating Don Lemon and protesters at the church than into investigating the shooting death of Renee Good. While the magistrate declined to charge Don Lemon, they did approve charges against several of the protesters at the church. According to AP, Bondi announced on Thursday that Nekima Levy Armstrong has been arrested, along with two other protesters. Levy Armstrong is being charged under a statute barring threatening or intimidating someone exercising a right. The other protesters arrested are being charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, “which prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services or seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship.”

Levy Armstrong is a civil rights attorney and local activist who has called for Easterwood to resign from his position in the church. “You cannot lead a congregation while directing an agency whose actions have cost lives and inflicted fear in our communities,” she said during a news conference Tuesday. “When officials protect armed agents, repeatedly refuse meaningful investigation into killings like Renée Good’s, and signal they may pursue peaceful protesters and journalists, that is not justice — it is intimidation.”

“Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” Bondi wrote on X. So ICE agents killing American citizens, tear gassing babies, and arresting people without due process is totally chill, but calling out a hypocritical pastor who’s inflicting terror on a community he’s supposed to be protecting is where the federal government draws the line.

Got it. 

SEE ALSO:

What Part Of ‘What Would Jesus Do’ Involves Being An ICE Agent?

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