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By Ari Paul / Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
Two journalists—former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort—were arrested by federal agents for their role in covering an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church. According to Deadline (1/30/26), a “Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that Lemon was facing ‘conspiracy to Deprive Rights, and …interfering by force of someone’s First Amendment rights,’” meaning “Lemon could face up to a decade behind bars on the first charge and fines and more than a year in prison on the second charge.”
This is a serious escalation of the Trump administration’s war on the press, as “the chief federal judge in Minneapolis declined to allow the case because he saw no probable cause to arrest the longtime journalist,” Politico (1/30/26) said. The administration stewed over Lemon’s coverage, and decided it was worth going after him. These arrests are a sign of the administration growing authoritarianism, as journalists are rounded up as protests are met with state violence.
To understand how badly the administration wanted to go after Lemon in particular, consider the description from the Washington Examiner (1/30/26) of the hurdles it faced:
The Justice Department had dropped its arrest warrant requests for Lemon and several others involved in the protest earlier this week, after federal Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko had also previously rejected the charges against Lemon.
After Micko initially rejected the arrest warrants, the DoJ appealed the decision to a higher court, in which Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, also refused to take action on the emergency request. Then, the DoJ appealed for a “writ of mandamus” to request a higher court force Schiltz to take action, according to Politico. That panel of judges rejected the emergency decision as well.
The New York Times (1/30/26) explained that the arrests finally resulted from a grand jury indictment—an illustration of New York Judge Sol Wachtler’s observation that “any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”
Scoffing at the First Amendment
Regime-adjacent media are giddy about Lemon’s arrest and already scoffing at the First Amendment concerns. The New York Post (1/30/26) said:
While he’s denied being part of the demonstrators, video posted by Lemon himself before, during and after the church takeover showed he was very much part of the group, under the guise of “chronicling” the event as a reporter.
Before the group barged into the house of worship, Lemon filmed a segment admitting 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.
That’s just called reporting, but that does seem to be the point: The administration views reporting as a threat to the ongoing DHS operations in Minneapolis, and therefore it cannot be tolerated.
The Daily Mail (1/30/26), a right-wing British tabloid, mocked Lemon after his arrest:
An insider familiar with the investigation added that prosecutors considered that Lemon would likely enjoy the publicity of his arrest, and said it was “definitely a downside” to bringing charges against him.
“He’ll write a book and act like he’s a martyr,” the source said. “But I also think if you don’t do anything you send a message that people can disrupt church services, and I think they have to cut that shit off and enforce the law.”
Accomplices to protesters
Lemon’s arrest clearly gratifies Trump and the MAGA base, who perceive the journalist as having mocked both the president and his fans (Poynter, 1/29/20). “Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television (with terrible ratings!),” Trump posted on the site then known as Twitter (1/28/20). But it also sends a broader message to journalists: Reporting from anti-ICE protests means you are an enemy of the regime, a stance that could have an immense chilling effect.
As horrible as Trump is when it comes to attacking press freedom, the Lemon case is the latest escalation in a long history of government attacks on the press who cover protests. Here are just a few incidents we’ve documented:
- Two reporters from the progressive Asheville Blade of North Carolina were convicted of trespassing while covering the clearing of a homeless encampment (FAIR.org, 6/8/23).
- Eight journalists were charged with felony rioting for being in the proximity of unruly protesters at the 2017 presidential inauguration, in what were known as the J20 protests (FAIR.org, 9/26/17). (One was former FAIR writer Aaron Cantú, who later later settled a lawsuit against the District of Columbia for his arrest and mistreatment—The Nation, 5/4/23.) Federal Judge Lynn Leibovitz held that another defendant, independent journalist Alexei Wood, could be tried for conspiracy and destruction of property because by covering the demonstration, his audience was “being kept abreast and informed of the events” (FAIR.org, 12/16/17).
- Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri was arrested and later acquitted on misdemeanor charges related to her coverage of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising (FAIR.org, 3/16/21).
- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman faced rioting charges for her coverage of anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota. The charges were later dismissed (Guardian, 10/17/16).
- Former FAIR intern John Knefel was one of at least 26 journalists arrested for covering Occupy protests around the country (FAIR.org, 1/1/12).
The Lemon and Fort arrests are a ratcheting up of an established trend by US officials, both local and national, to view reporters as accomplices to anti-government protesters, and to use the fear of arrest to scare the rest of the media.
As the National Association of Black Journalists (1/30/26) put it, this moment is “about whether the First Amendment has meaning when reporting is inconvenient to those in power.” The situation “mirrors a broader pattern in which government actors appear quick to criminalize those documenting injustice, while accountability for official misconduct remains elusive.”
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Ari Paul
Ari Paul has reported for the Nation, the Guardian, the Forward, the Brooklyn Rail, Vice News, In These Times, Jacobin and many other outlets.