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
    8·
    9 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.

      • counterfactual@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        9 days ago

        The US is putridly the source of all evil, pretty much. If one of you guys’ pentagon nukes self-detonated the world would be a better place.

        • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          9 days ago

          There are millions of people here who are kind and compassionate and want none of this and are absolutely horrified and too depressed to even work and function, but have no idea what to do about it.

          • KneeTitts@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            9 days ago

            millions of people here who too lazy to even vote to save their own democracy…

            fixed that for ya

            • ameancow@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              9 days ago

              The last several US elections had the highest voter turnout in US history. Laziness was not the issue, it was media compromise by internal and external sources pushing lies, ruining attention spans, and legions of foreign troll farms amplifying the most extreme voices of both sides of every single social issue so the majority of people tuned out from actual information.

              There was an entire report on it from intelligence agencies that was broadly ignored by those in power benefitting from the effects it caused.

              Whatever country you feel superior for living in right now, you are equally vulnerable and I guarantee you’re entire life is nothing more than fractions of decimals in some analyst’s office after being told to give profit projections for capturing gainshare from doing the same damn thing to you and your people.

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
            01·
            9 days ago

            Can I tell them what to do about it?

            I mean it’s repeated every time someone shoots school children

  • taiyang@lemmy.world
    4·
    9 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
      3·
      9 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
        1·
        9 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.

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    9 days ago

    Attorney General Pam Bondi denounced the protest […] saying […] that the scene was “horrific.”

    Horrific? A protest? People shouting to get attention and be heard is horrific?

    Tell me you’ve led the most privileged of lives without telling me. What a completely unrelatable train wreck. You’ve got conservatives who’ve seen combine accidents and IEDs and child soldiers — the true horrors of the world. Let’s see what their response is.

    Crickets.

    I see.

  • BigMacHole@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    9 days ago

    If ONLY Journalists had bent MORE at the Knee to Trump MAYBE he would THINK about NOT Arresting them at Some Point!

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 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
      1·
      9 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.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        2·
        9 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.