The Department of Justice hinted at filing criminal charges against the anti-ICE agitators who invaded a Sunday church service in St. Paul, including disgraced former CNN reporter Don Lemon, who feebly attempted to cloak his participation in the chaos as an “act of journalism.”
Assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that the department “will pursue charges” related to the incident in which families and children were terrorized by a screaming mob of protesters at Cities Church.
Lemon “went into the facility, and then he began, quote, unquote ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s a sort of shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t,” Dhillon clarified during an appearance on “The Benny Show” Monday.
In her interview with Johnson, Dhillon also hinted at the possibility of the DOJ charging Lemon under the Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan act.
“Whenever anyone conspires to violate the protected civil rights of American citizens, the Klan Act can be used to bring a conspiracy charge,” she said.
Video posted by Lemon himself before, during and after the church takeover showed he was very much part of the group, under the flimsy guise of “chronicling” the event as a journalist.
Ahead of the group barging into the house of worship, Lemon filmed a segment saying he had done some “reconnaissance” with the activists, which included members of Minnesota Black Lives Matter, who were milling about in a parking lot a few feet away.
“They’re planning an operation we’re going to follow them on. I can’t tell you exactly what they’re doing, but it’s called Operation Pull-Up,” he said coyly.
“So that’s what we’re doing here, and after we do this operation, you’ll see it live, these operations are surprise operations, again I can’t tell you where they’re going,” he said, readily admitting he had foreknowledge of what was about to take place.
Outside the church, Lemon filmed parents and their children driven out by the chaos, blithely narrating, “I just imagine it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here. That’s what protesting is all about,” he said.
As the takeover commenced, he shoved a microphone in the face of the church’s lead pastor, Jonathan Parnell, who called the protest “shameful” and politely said he wished protesters would leave, including Lemon, who responded with a litany of anti-Trump, anti-ICE talking points.
Other footage Lemon filmed inside the church showed him confronting parishioners on their way out the door, whom he seemed intent on debating. Despite their polite indulgence, including one man articulately explaining why the protest was misguided, Lemon later lamented on camera that they “didn’t want to hear the truth.”
In another video, posted after Dhillon publicly warned he was “on notice” for his participation, Lemon furiously attempted to backpedal his previously stated affinity with the group, claiming he had “no affiliations” with the disruptors.
But hours later speaking to “I’ve Had It” lefty podcaster Jennifer Welch, Lemon took the extraordinary step of lashing out at the churchgoers, calling them “entitled” and accusing them of “white supremacy.”
He also hit out at critical media coverage of his masquerading as a journalist as an attack on him for being black and gay.
Dhillon said on X that her division was investigating “potential violations of the federal FACE Act” for “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.”
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, is a 1994 law that prohibits interfering with people seeking reproductive health services or exercising religious freedom at a house of worship.
President Trump seemed to express support for the notion of Lemon being imprisoned for violating the act.
He reshared an X post on Truth Social in which the author referenced an instance of a “small group of elderly ladies were protesting at an abortion clinic and given 40 years in prison” for violating the FACE Act — later correcting themselves that they meant “months.”
The poster added, “I would like to see the same kind of sentence for Don Lemon.”
Lemon did not return multiple emails from The Post seeking comment Tuesday, but again trotted out accusations of racism against his detractors in a comment to NBC News.
“It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there,” he told the outlet.
“That framing is telling. What’s even more telling is the barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs, directed at me online by MAGA supporters and amplified by parts of the right-wing press.”
