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Federal agents in Los Angeles moved to take Don Lemon into custody late this month in connection with a disruption at Cities Church in St. Paul on January 18, where protesters burst into a worship service to confront a pastor alleged to have ties to ICE. The arrest — tied to federal civil rights allegations arising from that chaos — marks a dramatic escalation in the government’s response to lawlessness in places of worship.
Officials say the case involves alleged violations of federal statutes meant to protect people’s rights to worship free from intimidation, including a rarely-used application of the FACE Act and a conspiracy charge. Prosecutors argue the demonstrators didn’t merely protest — they disrupted and blocked parishioners, including children, which crossed the line from free speech into criminal conduct.
Don Lemon and other journalists at the scene insist they were simply doing their jobs, but this is not a playground for activist reporters to embed with mobs and call it “coverage.” Magistrate judges earlier refused to rubber-stamp arrest warrants, and the legal fight over probable cause has been fought in the courts, but the Justice Department has persisted in seeking accountability.
Let’s be clear: worship services and families deserve protection, and the church’s leaders say the community was terrified and that parents couldn’t reach their kids amid the disruption. Under President Trump’s administration, officials have signaled they will not look the other way when chaos invades sacred spaces, and many Americans rightly welcome enforcement rather than hand-wringing over the unpleasant truth that protesting has limits.
Meanwhile, Lemon’s defenders in the media elite try to sell this as persecution of a reporter, but millions of hardworking Americans know the difference between journalism and activism. Lemon himself admitted he’d been aware of plans for the action, and his public posture — straddling both participant and “journalist” — raises legitimate questions about where coverage ends and culpability begins.
Patriots who love this country should cheer any effort to keep churches and schools safe from intimidation and lawlessness, not pity the likes of those who storm sanctuaries to score woke points. If the elites and coastal celebrities are shocked that there are consequences, maybe the rest of the nation should take comfort: the rule of law still matters, and neither media fame nor virtue-signaling will let anyone turn America’s institutions into a stage for chaos.
