Don Lemon, a well-known independent journalist, was arrested with eight other people on Thursday after being indicted by a federal grand jury. The charges relate to his involvement in coverage of a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at a church in St. Paul the previous day. Protesters said that they targeted the church because its pastor, David Easterwood, works as acting director for ICE’s St. Paul Field Office.
The indictment alleges that up to 40 protestors entered the Cities Church during a worship service and began to disrupt it through “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats…and physical obstruction.” As a result, “[t]he Church [was] forced to terminate [its] worship service, congregants fled.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) says that Lemon, Fort, and the other journalists conspired with the protestors to deprive the church of its First Amendment rights. DOJ charged the group with Conspiracy Against Right of Religious Freedom, 18 USC § 241, and with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248(a)(2)…