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submitted 2 months ago by AniZaeger@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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.

[-] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Unfortunately, bad is a severe understatement. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before the regime starts raiding newsrooms.

[-] homes@piefed.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

They already raided that apartment of that Washington Post reporter

[-] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

You're so right. I edited my comment.

[-] homes@piefed.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

And he's just the first. They apparently just arrested independence journalist Georgia Fort in Minneapolis and took her to the Whipple Building.

[-] homes@piefed.world 1 points 2 months ago

the Whippie Bldg is the federal building in Mpls, right? I used to live in Minneapolis a long time ago, so I don't quite remember

[-] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Yep. Same place they've been taking all the other abductees.

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[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

So when are blue states going to stand up for the constitution in a real way?

[-] d33pblu3g3n3@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Pretty obvious by now Democrats will go quietly into the good night.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago
[-] DrDickHandler@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Spoiler: They won't.

[-] BlindPenguin@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago
[-] CircaV@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

The scary thing is the US hasn’t even hit peak fash yet.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months 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 points 2 months 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!

[-] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months 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.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months 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 points 2 months 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.

[-] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

They may have gotten an indictment through a grand jury.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 months 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.

[-] AniZaeger@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

It's a grand jury. A prosecutor could get one of them to indicate a ham sandwich.

[-] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Except when they literally couldn't.

this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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