Don Lemon says a dozen agents were sent to arrest him even though he offered to turn himself in
Don Lemon said about a dozen federal agents showed up at his Los Angeles hotel last week to arrest him, even though his lawyer said he would surrender to authorities. federal civil rights charges for his coverage of an anti-immigration enforcement protest. disrupted a service In a Minnesota church.
Lemon told the late-night ABC host. Jimmy Kimmel He said sending agents was a waste of resources because law enforcement would not have had to send agents to track him down if he had been allowed to surrender to authorities.
The independent journalist appeared Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “I was walking towards the room and I pressed the elevator button and then all of a sudden I felt like I was being pushed and people were trying to grab me and handcuff me,” he said on his show.
He asked the agents who they were and said they identified themselves. Lemon asked to see an arrest warrant and was told there was no warrant. Agents then called an FBI agent from outside to come in and show Lemon the arrest warrant on his cell phone.
The Justice Department and FBI did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Kimmel introduced the night’s first guest, Lemon, by saying that she was “arrested on journalism charges.”
Lemon’s attorney said Lemon plans to plead not guilty. “I will not be silenced,” he told reporters after he was released by the judge’s decision.
A grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon, another freelance journalist, Georgia Fort, and others for conspiracy and murder in St. Louis, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. He accused the church of interfering with worshipers’ First Amendment rights during a Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul.
Who was Lemon? Fired from CNN in 2023 After an up-and-down run as morning host, he said he had no connection with the group that broke into the church and disrupted Sunday service.
Lemon said he couldn’t say much about the case but said he wasn’t a protester.
“I went there to be a journalist. I went there to record, document and record events. I was following a group and that’s what I did. I reported on them,” Lemon said.
Lemon said he asked the officers who arrested him if they would allow him to make a phone call. He said he was told no and could speak to his lawyer the next day. She tried to use Siri on her Apple Watch to call her husband and her lawyer, but neither picked up the phone.
The diamond bracelet she was wearing kept getting caught in her handcuffs, which was hurting, and the agents told Lemon they were going to take it off. Lemon said she asked the agent if they would mind taking the matter to Lemon’s husband in their hotel room, and they agreed to do so.
“That’s how my husband found out. Otherwise, no one would have known where I was,” Lemon said.
Lemon said he was held in a waiting room at the federal courthouse from midnight until 1 p.m. the next day.
Kimmel himself became a symbol of ABC’s fight against censorship last year. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” suspended for statements made following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr had recently pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air.
ABC lifts suspension after public outcry and Kimmel returned to the air with much stronger ratings than before. In the congress, Democratic senators voice concerns That Carr’s actions trampled on the First Amendment.
