Don Lemon, a former CNN host turned independent journalist, pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal civil rights charges tied to a protest at a Minnesota church, according to court proceedings described by the Associated Press. The arraignment took place in St. Paul, and four other defendants also entered not-guilty pleas in the case.
Lemon told the court he went to Cities Church in St. Paul to cover the Jan. 18 demonstration, not to participate in it. Outside the courthouse after his arraignment, he said, “For more than 30 years, I’ve been a journalist, and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work.” He added, “And like all of you here in Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I will not be intimidated, I will not back down.”
At the hearing, supporters gathered outside the courthouse and chanted “Protect the press.” Another defendant, civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, also pleaded not guilty and echoed Lemon’s stated focus on constitutional rights. Levy Armstrong said, “We the people have to stand for our rights. We have to stand for the Constitution. We have to stand for our First Amendment rights to freedom of the speech, some freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press,” and she added that she viewed the case as an effort to silence dissent, saying, “Today we have the federal government trying to weaponize the Department of Justice in order to silence us, in order to prevent us from speaking the truth.”
The charges stem from last month’s protest at the Southern Baptist church, where demonstrators interrupted a service while chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referencing Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Prosecutors said nine people were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prohibits interfering with or intimidating a person exercising or seeking to exercise First Amendment rights related to religious worship through force, threats of force, or physical obstruction.
Attorneys for Lemon and another independent journalist, Georgia Fort, filed a joint motion seeking transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to the indictments. In filings referenced in the reporting, the defense argued that the prosecutors had initially faced multiple judges’ refusals to sign arrest warrants for Lemon and Fort before the government proceeded through a grand jury, and they said those refusals raised “serious concerns about whether the government made misleading or inaccurate statements of law and/or facts” to the grand jury. The defense also argued that pressure from the White House and the Justice Department could have influenced charging decisions.
The attorneys wrote, “In the United States of America, we do not prosecute journalists for doing their job. That happens in Russia, China, Iran and other authoritarian regimes. And yet the government sold this unconstitutional mess to the grand jury.” They added that disclosing the grand jury proceedings was necessary “to ensure the government did not mislead or mis-instruct it,” and reporting said prosecutors planned to oppose the motion.
The protest also drew criticism from conservative religious and political leaders. Reporting said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned in a social media post at the time that “President Trump will not tolerate the intimidation and harassment of Christians in their sacred places of worship.” Renee Carlson, an attorney with True North Legal representing Cities Church, said in a statement that by pleading not guilty, Lemon and others were “doubling down on their claim that the press can do whatever they want under the auspices of journalism.” Carlson said, “The First Amendment does not protect premeditated schemes to violate the sanctity of a sanctuary, disrupt worship services, or intimidate children,” adding, “There is no ‘press pass’ to trespass on church property or conspire to invade religious worship.”
Reporting said one of Lemon’s attorneys, Joe Thompson, is a former federal prosecutor who had left the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office in recent weeks and was described as part of his legal team in court Friday. Thompson had led investigations of major public program fraud cases before resigning last month, according to the report.
Lemon’s case is part of a broader set of legal actions involving immigration enforcement and protests that have been marked by wider political disputes over imagery online. Levy Armstrong was also identified by the reporting as the subject of a doctored photo posted on official White House social media that falsely showed her crying during an arrest, which the report said circulated amid broader AI-altered imagery since fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis.
According to the report, two more defendants accused in the protest were scheduled for arraignment next week, including Fort. The reporting said potential penalties for the FACE Act charges range up to a year in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.