Over two dozen agents from Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon late in the evening on Thursday, in connection with a protest of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant terror campaign in Minnesota. A few hours later, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration showed up at the home of Georgia Fort, an independent journalist in the Minneapolis area who also covered the protest. And on Friday, January 30, Attorney General Pam Bondi celebrated the arrests of the two journalists, both of whom are Black, as well as two Black community activists who participated in the protest, which took place at a local church.
“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church,” Bondi said on social media. All four were released from police custody on Friday afternoon, but continue to face federal charges arising from their protesting, or in the case of Lemon and Fort, their reporting.
Lemon and Fort both reported live on January 18 from Cities Church, a house of worship in St. Paul, Minnesota, where one of the pastors also leads the local U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement field office. During a service, protesters chanted “ICE out” and “Justice for Renée Good,” referring to the unarmed Minneapolis woman whom an ICE agent fatally shot three times and called a “fucking bitch” in early January. While interviewing parishioners, Lemon explained that he was attending the protest in his capacity as a journalist: “I’m just chronicling,” said Lemon. “I’m not with the group.”
The Trump administration has nevertheless charged Lemon and Fort with two federal crimes: conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of others—here, the First Amendment right to religious freedom—and physically interfering with religious exercise at a place of religious worship.
Fort and Lundy leave the Minneapolis federal courthouse, January 2026 (Photo by Renee Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Prior to Bondi’s announcement on social media, the Trump administration had been trying and failing to get Lemon and Fort arrested in retaliation for their coverage of the protest for a week straight. Career prosecutors refused to bring charges, citing a lack of evidence of a crime. A magistrate judge determined there was no probable cause to issue an arrest warrant. Federal courts refused the administration’s request to review the magistrate’s denial of an arrest warrant—a request that a federal judge described as “unheard of.”
The fourth time, it would seem, is the charm. The administration obtained an indictment from a grand jury on January 29, and arrested Lemon and Fort soon thereafter. The indictment alleges that Lemon and Fort “stood in close proximity to the pastor in an attempt to oppress and intimidate him” and “physically obstructed his freedom of movement while Lemon peppered him with questions.” It also alleges that Lemon stood at the main door of the church and “physically obstructed” congregants as they tried to exit so that he could “challenge them with “facts” about U.S. immigration policy.”
A reporter standing around, observing and recording events, and asking questions is what most normal people would describe as “journalism.” The First Amendment prohibits the government from abridging “the freedom of speech, or of the press,” and the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized a free press as essential to democracy. In 1965, for instance, the Court described the press as “a mighty catalyst in awakening public interest in governmental affairs” by informing the citizenry about public events and exposing corruption. In 1966, the Court similarly said that “the press serves and was designed to serve as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by governmental officials.”
If journalists are not free to cover uprisings against government abuses without fear of state retaliation, this fundamental democratic safeguard no longer exists. As a 2024 Yale Law School report on arrests of press at protests explained, preventing journalists from covering events of public concern prevents the public from making “the informed decisions that are at the heart of self-governance.”
Many press organizations and journalists have condemned the arrests—including Fort herself, in a livestream recorded moments before she was taken into custody. “I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press because now the federal agents are at my door arresting me for filming the church protest a few weeks ago,” she said. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called it “unprecedented” for the Justice Department to “deploy the federal laws it has previously cited in this case against journalistic activity.” And a group of Minnesota news organizations put out a statement highlighting the “distinct and protected role” of the press under the First Amendment. “In America, we do not arrest journalists for doing their jobs,” they said.
That last claim reflects the Constitution’s aspirations more so than the empirical reality. The Freedom of the Press Foundation reported 147 incidents of journalists across the country being detained or arrested in 2020. Overwhelmingly, these incidents occurred as journalists covered protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd. Last year, the Foundation documented at least 32 instances of journalists being detained or charged in connection with their work, 28 of which were at immigration-related protests. In January 2026, the Foundation recorded at least 12 instances of federal agents physically assaulting journalists bearing witness to immigration protests in Minnesota.
Minnesota protesters are pushing back against the Trump administration’s practice of kidnapping their neighbors and executing dissidents in the street. By arresting the Black journalists who publicize the community’s righteous anger, the Trump administration is not just infringing Lemon’s and Fort’s right to inform the public. It is also infringing the public’s right to know about and respond to the violent white nationalist agenda the federal government is carrying out in the streets.
