Former CNN host Don Lemon claims he was doing journalism on January 18 when he joined dozens of anti-ICE protestors who invaded the Sunday morning worship assembly of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, stopping the service, scattering worshippers, and terrifying children by telling them their parents were bound for Hell.

“I was not a protestor. I went there to be a journalist, to chronicle and document and record what was happening. I was following that one group around, so that’s what I did, I reported on them,” Lemon told ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel during a February 2 interview following his arrest.

Lemon was with CNN for 17 years where he was, among other positions, host of the prime-time news-talk show “Don Lemon Tonight” before being abruptly terminated in 2023. He has since been promoting himself as an independent journalist by posting his reports on YouTube and social media.

But Lemon and eight other protestors were indicted by a grand jury in a federal District Court for Minnesota on two major counts on January 29. According to the indictment, “after the service commenced, a group of approximately 20-40 agitators, including all of the defendants named in this Indictment, entered the Church in a coordinated takeover-style attack and engaged in acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction alleged herein.”

The indictment continued, “As a result of defendants’ conduct, the pastor and congregation were forced to terminate the Church’s worship service, congregants fled the Church building out of fear for their safety, other congregants took steps to implement an emergency plan, and young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their parents were going to die.”

The indictment also described Lemon and the other defendants as “aiding and abetting one another, and together with other persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury, by use of force, threat of force, and physical obstruction, intentionally injured, intimidated, and interfered with, and attempted to injure, intimidate, and interfere with multiple persons, including the Church’s congregants, clergy, and staff, who were then lawfully exercising and seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship, which conduct resulted in bodily injury to one of the congregants.”

The two counts include violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by allegedly using force to gain entry into and then disrupt worship services. The FACE Act was originally passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton in 1994 to protect access to abortion facilities. The second count is based on 18 U.S.C. § 241, the federal law that makes it a crime to conspire to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person …in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” If convicted, Lemon could face a decade in prison and heavy fines.

Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), immediately defended Lemon, calling the indictment “a dark message to journalists everywhere” in a Senate floor speech. “If you dare criticize this administration, watch your back. That’s not a democracy. That’s a police state. And that is pure authoritarian bile... The Department of Justice has all too often become the department of vengeance. Don Lemon should be released at once, and the frivolous charges against him dropped.”

Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who is widely thought to be preparing a bid for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, went on Lemon’s YouTube show and declared the former CNN host “just an example that they want to send to all journalists. They want to get that reporter out there, whether it’s some young, brand new person at a journalism school, or some person that’s been doing this for 30 years, 40 years, to make a decision not to write the story, not to ask the question, not to go to the place where they can get the information so they can share it with the American people so we can continue to have a democracy beyond this 250 years. They’re trying to chill free speech.”

Republicans, including Tennessee’s Rep. John Rose, blasted Lemon and welcomed his indictment. On his Facebook page, Rose said, “Don Lemon terrorized children in church as they worshiped Jesus. Don Lemon broke the law, and being a ‘journalist’ doesn’t make you above it. Thank you, AG Pam Bondi, for sending a clear message that attacks on Christians will not be tolerated in the United States.”

Lemon’s defense that he was just reporting during the violent invasion of the Minnesota church during its Sunday worship service faces three huge obstacles, all courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court, according to Just Facts, a Texas-based fact-checking research and educational non-profit institute.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that journalists cannot participate in crimes just because they are reporting on them,” Just Facts reported, listing three examples.

1. “‘The publisher of a newspaper has no special immunity from the application of general laws. He has no special privilege to invade the rights and liberties of others.’ (Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 1937).
2. “‘The press may not with impunity break and enter an office or dwelling to gather news.’ (Cohen v. Cowles Media Company, 1991).
3. “‘It would be frivolous to assert’ that ‘the First Amendment, in the interest of securing news or otherwise, confers a license on either the reporter or his news sources to violate valid criminal laws.’ (Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972).”