Don Lemon says Trump administration wanted to ‘embarrass’ him with arrest

Don Lemon has said his recent arrest was designed to “embarrass” and “intimidate” him.

Authorities arrested the former CNN correspondent last Thursday (29 January) on charges that he violated federal law when he entered the Cities Church in St Paul, Minnesota on 18 January.

Lemon had been covering a protest against the immigration crackdown in the area, which has seen Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, killed by federal immigration agents. However, protestors interrupted a service at the church, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official serves as a pastor, and chanted “ICE out”. 

In the aftermath, President Trump was among those calling for Lemon’s arrest citing a law that protects people seeking to participate in a service in a house of worship. As these calls built up momentum, Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, contacted the US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to say Lemon was willing to hand himself in, as the journalist explained during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday (2 February).

“[We] never heard back from them,” Lemon told the TV host. Lemon then explained how the Department of Justice sought to find judges to charge Lemon trying two different judges and an appeals court before getting an indictment from a grand jury.

When it came to the arrest, Lemon said it followed him covering the Grammys and the Black Music Collective event in Los Angeles. He had then attended a Spotify party before returning to his hotel.

“I got back to the hotel. I walked in, I had my swag bag from the thing, and I was walking up to the room and I pressed the elevator button and all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled and people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” Lemon recalled.

“And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ I said, ‘Well, who are you?’ Finally, they identified themselves. I said, ‘If you are who you are then where’s the warrant?’ They didn’t have the warrant,” the journalist continued.

“So, they had to wait for someone from outside, an FBI guy to come in, to show me a warrant on a cell phone. By that time I was trying to figure out what was going on, to get my bearings.” Lemon was taken outside and met with “maybe a dozen” officers which he described as a “waste of resources” given he’d been willing to hand himself in.

The former CNN journalist then said he thought it was all done to make a point. “They want to embarrass you, they want to intimidate you, they want to instil fear. That’s why they did it that way,” he told Kimmel.

Lemon got a message out after his wedding diamond bracelet kept snagging on his handcuffs. “And it was kind of hurting. They said they’d take it off. And I said ‘Do you mind taking that up to my husband in room blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.’ And one of the FBI agents said ‘sure’ and took it up and that’s how my husband found out, otherwise no one would have known where I was.”

After his release on Friday (30 January) Lemon spoke outside the courthouse. As reported by Variety, he said: “I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now. I will not stop ever.”

Eight others are also charged with one count each of conspiracy against religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship. 

The indictment says all nine defendants “oppressed, threatened, and intimidated the Church congregants and pastors by physically occupying”, according to CBS News. The indictment also says Lemon surrounded the pastor “in an attempt to oppress and intimidate him” and also “confronted some congregants and physically obstructed them” from leaving the church.

Lemon’s live-stream of the event shows him reporting on the event and trying to talk to multiple people inside the church.

He is next due in court on in federal court in Minneapolis on 9 February.  

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