{"id":31834,"date":"2026-08-08T03:18:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31834"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:18:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:18:54","slug":"vindictive-motivations-don-lemon-seeks-to-dismiss-charges-stemming-from-church-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=31834","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Vindictive motivations&#8217;: Don Lemon seeks to dismiss charges stemming from church protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">Journalist Don Lemon is seeking to have the criminal case against him thrown out by a federal judge, according to a filing on Friday, and his lawyers are tying the charges to what they say is a &#8220;broader assault on the free press.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Lemon was charged by the Justice Department after <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.com\/US\/former-cnn-journalist-don-lemon-plea-church-charges\/story?id=130143511\" dir=\"ltr\">allegedly entering<\/a> a church in St. Paul, Minnesota with a group of anti-ICE activists who disrupted services &#8212; but Lemon maintains he was there in his capacity as a journalist.<!-- -->\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The January church service came amid an immigration crackdown in Minnesota and the killing of Renee Good by a federal agent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Lemon&#8217;s lawyers argue that statements made by President Trump and current and former members of the Justice Department make clear it was a \u201cvindictive prosecution,&#8221; and decried the manner in which the investigation after Lemon\u2019s arrest took place.<!-- -->\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He was charged with two counts of federal civil rights violations including conspiracy against rights of religious freedom and had pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Officials say Lemon and other protesters occupied the church and Lemon &#8220;physically obstructed&#8221; parishioners as they tried to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Against this background of literally years of the President\u2019s direct attacks, Mr. Lemon landed in President Trump\u2019s crosshairs again for reporting on a story that the administration wanted to go away: the immigration surge in Minnesota,\u201d according to the filing.<!-- -->\u00a0<!-- -->At the same time, senior Justice Department officials expressed direct hostility to Mr. Lemon\u2019s status as a journalist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The filing cites comments from former Attorney General Pam Bondi,<!-- -->\u00a0<!-- -->then-deputy<!-- -->\u00a0<!-- -->Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, of the DOJ&#8217;s Civil Rights Division. <!-- -->\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cOne need not look further than the statements and actions of the President and senior leadership in the Department of Justice to see that this case is an attempt to punish Mr. Lemon for exercising his First Amendment rights as a journalist to provide truthful coverage of actions by this administration,\u201d according to the filing. &#8220;The vindictive motivations of this prosecution were perfectly summed up by Dhillon\u2019s vow to &#8216;pursue this to the ends of the earth&#8217; and the completely unprecedented nature of the Attorney General\u2014fighting to maintain her job\u2014flying out to a district to personally manage a prosecution.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Lemon\u2019s lawyers claim the Justice Department used &#8220;extraordinary channels\u201d to pursue charges against him, and ignored his lawyers offers for a self-surrender.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIn what can only be described as an effort to punish and humiliate Mr. Lemon, the government ignored the request to arrange an orderly surrender and chose to deputize agents to his Los Angeles hotel\u2014where he was covering the music industry\u2019s annual awards show\u2014to arrest him at midnight,\u201d according to the filing. &#8220;Ironically, this is the exact practice that this Justice Department condemned the prior administration for engaging in against abortion facility protestors charged under the exact same statute as Mr. Lemon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">During the post arrest investigation, the government submitted warrants for Lemon\u2019s YouTube subscribers, which was rejected by a federal judge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Lemon&#8217;s attorneys say the government \u201ccircumvented\u201d normal procedure for a search warrant they instead issued an administrative warrant. They say that&#8217;s because a search warrant for his devices was rejected by a magistrate judge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Journalist Don Lemon is seeking to have the criminal case against him thrown out by a federal judge, according to a filing on Friday, and his lawyers are tying the charges to what they say is a &#8220;broader assault on the free press.\u201d Lemon was charged by the Justice Department after allegedly entering a church&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/7f0009ec-926e-4afd-98f7-4880054d3da9\/don-lemon-gty-jef-260807_1786113786076_hpMain_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}