Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested on Jan. 30 for allegedly disrupting a religious service, thereby obstructing congregants’ right to religious freedom in a place of worship, while reporting on an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church. The White House X account announced the arrest with a photo of Lemon captioned, “When life gives you lemons…” and a chain emoji.
The post from the White House is honorless, petty, and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. From an official channel, members of the Trump administration bragged about the arrest of a journalist.
Lemon’s arrest, and Fort’s, is likely unconstitutional. They were not directly involved in the disruption of the church service. Lemon did accompany protestors as they travelled to the church, and filmed the protest as it unfolded, but he did not participate in disruptive chanting.
In order to arrest the journalists, the Department of Justice had to secure a grand jury indictment, as a federal magistrate judge rejected a criminal complaint against Lemon. In the indictment, prosecutors claim that Lemon intimidated the pastor of the church and “peppered him with questions to promote the operation’s message.” Actual footage, recorded live by Lemon, shows Lemon standing close to the pastor, but at no point are their interactions hostile.
The Trump administration has made clear that it does not care about equal application of the law. Jan. 6 protestors who sought to harm or disrupt Congress received blanket pardons, even for individuals who assaulted police officers. But now, when confronted by a journalist sympathetically covering a nonviolent protest, the attorney general and her assistants are eager to scream about protesting religious freedom.
I am unsurprised to hear that journalists have been arrested in Minnesota. The White House and the Pentagon have controlled who gets press access to their conferences, thereby influencing the questions they receive, and the work experience of the reporters they meet. Trump once called a female journalist “piggy”, and has frequently gone off topic at conferences by rambling about the incompetency of various media outlets and the individuals who work for them.
As the executive branch continues to trample on legal requirements and ignore public upset with all the grace of a grizzly bear, it is no wonder that they would ignore the rights of journalists who unfavorably show that people are, in fact, upset.
