Trump’s Justice Department went after the independent journalist for covering an anti-ICE protest in St. Paul.
A federal magistrate judge in Minnesota has blocked the Justice Department’s attempt to bring charges against former CNN host Don Lemon for his coverage of an anti-ICE protest in St. Paul last weekend, CBS News and CNN reported Thursday.
“The Attorney General is enraged at the magistrate judge’s decision,” a person familiar with the matter told both outlets.
A lawyer for Lemon, who currently works as an independent journalist, praised the news of the judge’s decision.
“The magistrate’s reported actions confirm the nature of Don’s First Amendment protected work this weekend in Minnesota as a reporter,” his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “It was no different than what he has done for more than 30 years, reporting and covering newsworthy events on the ground and engaging in constitutionally protected activity as a journalist.”
Lemon, he added, is prepared to dispute any charges that come his way.
“Should the Department of Justice continue with a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job,” he continued, “Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment.
The judge’s reported refusal to sign off on the charges comes four days after Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced the DOJ’s plans to pursue charges against the protesters and said Lemon was “on notice,” calling his coverage of the protest “pseudo journalism.” She also said in a podcast interview that being a journalist was not a “shield” to “being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy.”
Lemon dismissed the efforts in another podcast interview.
“Whatever they do, let them do it, but in the end, I’m telling you, I don’t think that they’ve realized that people are fed up with this,” he said in an interview with podcaster Jennifer Welch. ”That’s why you see so many people out in the streets. That’s why those protesters went into the church.”
News of the judge’s decision came shortly after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that two people believed to have been involved in the protest at Cities Church were arrested. The protest involved a group disrupting a Sunday service to chant “ICE out!” and alleged that the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, was a top ICE official in Minnesota.
Lemon, who was there acting as a reporter and posted footage of the protest to his YouTube channel, has openly feuded with President Donald Trump since his first term in office. In 2018, he opened “CNN Tonight” with a damning criticism of the president after Trump referred to El Salvador, Haiti and African countries as “shithole countries.”
“The president of the United States is racist. A lot of us already knew that,” Lemon said.
