Journalist Don Lemon promises to fight federal charges following his arrest after Minnesota church protest | CNN Politics
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A defiant Don Lemon vowed to fight the charges brought against him by federal prosecutors Friday, after he and another independent journalist were arrested in connection with a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    178·
    2 days ago

    Lemon was with dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters as they rushed into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month, interrupting a church service and leading to tense confrontations.

    “Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards,” his attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement early Friday. “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”

    “Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell added. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”

    This is bad.

    EDIT - I should have said: This is really, really, really bad.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    58·
    2 days ago

    I had been reading elsewhere that the Justice Department had already gone to two Federal judges to press charges against him, only to be denied. I am interested to see whether they bothered a third time, or simply took him into custody without the paperwork, because they could.

    Who’s gonna stop them?

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
      29·
      2 days ago

      They did some wildly unprecedented legal maneuvers to try to get these warrants.

      1. Went to magistrate duty judge, who approved 3/8 warrants.
      2. Went to that judge’s manager, Chief Judge Schlitz. He didn’t outright deny the warrants, he just wanted to take a few days to think about it.
      3. That wasn’t good enough. They went to the judge-manager’s manager, the 8th circuit court of appeals. In a sealed emergency petition for writ of mandamus.
      4. Judge Schlitz was required to defend himself in this mandamus action with two hours of notice and he wasn’t even allowed to read the papers.

      Since the mandamus action failed, it seems likely that the government has gotten a grand jury indictment. Which process bypasses judges nearly entirely.

      Note that it’s pretty normal to get indictments first in the federal courts (before the current times), because if the feds arrest someone on a complaint, they have a 30 day deadline to get that indictment. If they don’t arrest first, there’s no deadline and they can retry as many times as they want.

      So normally the feds only use complaints when they need to get someone off the street urgently. These feds use complaints because they only care about splashing the perp walk on social media. They don’t care what happens to the case after that.

      • Kirp123@lemmy.world
        11·
        2 days ago

        You think? Their track record with Grand Juries is not the best. They tried to indict the sandwich guy 2 times through a grand jury and failed, had to downgrade the charges to misdemeanors since don’t require a grand jury and then the jury in the misdemeanor trial acquitted the guy.

        My guess is they used an administrative warrant, those have no real oversight and they’ve been using them a lot.

        An administrative warrant is a warrant obtained from a judge by an administrative body to search for violations of administrative rules and regulations. While similar to a criminal warrant, an administrative warrant requires a lower standard of probable cause to be granted. Administrative warrants are governed by 49 USC §32707.

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
        2·
        2 days ago

        That’s what reporting seems to indicate. I’m fairly shocked they managed to get a jury to go along with this. The charges look extremely flimsy on multiple levels.

    • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      Who’s gonna stop them?

      They’ve had more than those two failures in the judicial system, they’ve been hammered by their own judges over and over again recently, just stuff that never gets publicity.

      They probably know that they’re going to face massive legal repercussions for this action, and will never get it to any kind of trial, but they’re just trying to send a message.

      They’re bad at it though, they don’t know how to fascism properly, so they’re going to have to release Lemon and then claim to have some kind of power after being shot down by more legal institutions.

      When other dictatorships do these actions, they usually have the legal system locked-down already. Don’t let the corruption of the Supreme Court make you think that the entire country’s judicial branch is cooked, the USA is HUGE and has a LOT of power in states.

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
    23·
    2 days ago

    Without the context I felt super out of the loop, but no, it’s the church protests that’s being treated as some crazy hate crime that it isn’t. I just didn’t expect Don Fucking Lemon to be involved, lol.

    • Noblesavage@lemmy.world
      29·
      2 days ago

      Don Lemon was there as an independent reporter interviewing the protestors and church people as the protest was going on. I just watched Legal Eagle’s video about the protest yesterday.

      Basically, it boils down to the federal government pushing to get a perp walk (photos of the alleged criminal in handcuffs being walked by “authorities”) to plaster photos of them all over social media to make the accused look bad. As Legal Eagle says, it’s the federal government making content and doing it for the memes.

      Once they’re arrested, federal lawyers TRY to get them in front of a judge to get them (protestors and Don’t Lemon now) convicted of something, but in this case a whole bunch of judges have said, “What you’re doing doesn’t make sense and hasn’t been done before, but if you want to try this case in front a grand jury - go ahead.” The judge knows they won’t because they’ll lose so the case eventually gets dropped - but hey, they got some good photos of people they don’t like!

      • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
        14·
        2 days ago

        They’re still having their freedom violated regardless of the outcome. It’s some bullshit to arrest some journalists just to prove a fucking point and burn through some more money while the economy just collapses around us.

  • UnspecificGravity@piefed.socialEnglish
    30·
    2 days ago

    Kinda makes it seem like journalists spending ten years making Trump seem like a viable candidate didn’t protect them very much, huh?

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        5·
        2 days ago

        The American government has been taken over by fascists who are rounding up random people in the street, killing who they want without consequence, and are now blatantly and actively suppressing media coverage.

        But only resist if it’s safe to do so. Right.

        I think history will show that America’s gone past that inflection point now. It’s not safe for anyone to resist. That’s the problem. And that’s why resistance is required now more than ever.

        Finally, after 250 years, all that rhetoric about what the 2nd Amendment is actually for is being put to a real test. Let’s see if the Americans meant what they said.

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 days ago

          Maybe you don’t understand how mental illness works. Many people with mental illness know they shouldn’t own easily accessible weapons. Maybe some people have mental illness that cycles.

          Maybe, people who can be a threat to themselves and a threat to others are already vulnerable in ways that ICE will exploit with or without that individual having weapons. Such as pressuring them into hurting themselves. Maybe this happens a lot already.

          Maybe you should seriously consider if you want someone who gets really angry when they get anxious to have a firearm around you.

          Don’t encourage stupid behavior. That’s how we got here.

  • SillyGooseQuacked@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 days ago

    There’s a concept in law enforcement whereby arresting one person dissuades others from doing similar things.

    I wonder if the Trump admin doesn’t want reporters in Minneapolis. /s

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 days ago

      There’s a concept in law enforcement whereby arresting one person dissuades others from doing similar things.

      It doesn’t even have to be about being arrested. The threat of lawsuit, broadcasting licences not being renewed, or business acquisition of a media company by another not being approved by the government elicits enough fear to corporate journalists. These are done well before using threat of arrest to suppress free press.

    • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Yah but these fuckwads also are powered by the same people who turned our world into an attention-based economy, and the more they create drama somewhere, the more people will rush there for clicks and views and throw themselves in front of widely hated ICE agents to try to get confrontations on camera.

      They’re fascists trying to make a new fourth reich, that’s for sure. But they’re actually really bad at it. These clowns are shooting themselves in the dick every day.