Journalists Georgia Fort, Don Lemon among 4 arrested over protest during St. Paul church service

Independent journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon were arrested early on Jan. 30 in connection with her documenting an anti-ICE demonstration in a St. Paul church during a service on Jan. 18.

Fort’s attorney told the Minnesota Star Tribune that she was arrested about 6 a.m. at her Twin Cities home and taken to the Whipple Federal Building, site of much of the judicial activity in connection with the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Lemon, a former CNN news anchor, also was in Cities Church during the protest and covering it as a journalist. He was arrested late on Jan. 29 in Los Angeles.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X that the arrests of Fort and Lemon were at her direction. Bondi said she also ordered the arrests of politician and Black Lives Matter-Minnesota co-founder Trahern Crews and DFL activist and former state House staffer Jamael Lundy,the intergovernmental affairs manager for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. His wife is St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie.

Bondi said all the arrests were for “the coordinated attack” on the church.

Leita Walker, Fort’s attorney, said the arrest warrant “following an indictment, as best I can tell,” cites two charges: conspiracy against right of religious freedom at place of worship, and injure, intimidate and interfere with exercise of right of religious freedom at place of worship.

Walker, who has spoken with Fort but not yet met with her, said the agents who arrested her client were from the Drug Enforcement Administration “for reasons I don’t understand.” Walker said Fort has a court hearing scheduled for the afternoon of Jan. 30 in Minneapolis.

“I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press,” she said on the video.

Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Lemon, said in a statement his client’s arrest was “a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job. Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”

Charged with participating in the protest are Minneapolis civil rights activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, St. Paul school board member Chauntyll Allen and military veteran William Kelly.

The Trump administration sought to charge eight people in all over the episode citing a law that protects people seeking to participate in a service in a house of worship. But a magistrate judge who reviewed the evidence approved charges against only Levy Armstrong, Allen and Kelly, rejecting the evidence against the others as insufficient.

Attorneys for Cities Church supported the federal actions. The “First Amendment does not allow premeditated plots or coordinated actions to violate the sanctity of a sanctuary, disrupt worship and intimidate small children,” said Renee Carlson, general counsel for True North Legal.