Federal authorities have arrested two journalists, ostensively over their reporting of a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month.
Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and Emmy-winning Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort were taken into custody on unknown charges, KARE reported.
Three people, including Minneapolis civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, had been previously arrested over the January 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, where a pastor also serves as acting director of the local ICE field office.
Those arrests cited the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act, a 1994 law that bars the use of force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone obtaining or providing reproductive health services or exercising their right to worship.
Authorites had previously tried to get a judge to sign off on a warrant for Lemon’s arrest in Minnesota, but the judge declined. Lemon was arrested Thursday night while covering the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, his attorney said.
Fort was arrested Friday morning, according to a Facebook live she posted.
“As a member of the press, I filmed the church protest a few weeks ago and now I’m being arrested for that,” Fort said in her video message. “It’s hard to understand how we have a Constitution, Constitutional rights, when we can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”
Fort said the agents outside her door had documentation indicating she had been indicted by a grand jury for unknown crimes.
Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s attorney, released a statement noting that “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”
“There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work,” Lowell said, adding that the arrest was an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment” and a “transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration.”
“Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court,” he said.
Levy Armstrong, who participated in the church protest, said Thursday evening she believed her arrest was a “political retaliation.”
“This is not only an immigration fight, this is a fight for police accountability,” she said. “This is a fight for racial justice. This is a fight for our constitutional rights, and we must not forget that.”
After her arrest last week, the official White House social media accounts posted an AI-altered photo of her “perp walk” making it appear Levy Armstrong was crying as she was led by federal agents.
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[Featured image: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort/Facebook]
