The Trump regime has taken direct aim at the First Amendment, arresting four people — including two journalists — for their role in a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. The journalists are Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor who’s now independent, and Georgia Fort, an independent reporter based in the Twin Cities who recorded her thoughts just before she was arrested and posted a video on Facebook.
Lemon and Fort accompanied protesters as they made their way inside a church to protest what they claimed were the pastor’s ties to ICE. They were there to live-stream and report on what happened, and the Department of Justice hasn’t produced a scintilla of evidence that their activities went beyond that. This is a grotesque violation of the First Amendment. I’m tempted to say that it’s shocking, but it’s not. Stunning?
Here is yet another independent journalist, former Washington Post reporter Philip Bump, on Bluesky:
The thing about this is that I don’t know a single journalist who will be intimidated by Don Lemon being arrested? But, then, that’s not why the administration is doing this. The founders couldn’t have imagined a president violating core freedoms for the purposes of social-media accolades.
The Committee to Protect Journalists weighed in earlier today.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for their reporting on a protest in Minnesota, arrests which mark a serious escalation of attacks on the press in the United States.
“This is an egregious attack on the First Amendment and on journalists’ ability to do their work,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “As an international organization, we know that the treatment of journalists is a leading indicator of the condition of a country’s democracy. These arrests are just the latest in a string of egregious and escalating threats to the press in the United States — and an attack on people’s right to know.”
Lemon, who formerly reported for CNN and now publishes on Substack, was arrested Thursday night; Fort, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, was arrested Friday morning. Both arrests were in relation to their coverage of a protest at a Minnesota church led by local activists against immigration enforcement operations in the state.
Lemon was arrested in Los Angeles, where he was reporting on the Grammy Awards. Here is what his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had to say:
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. 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.
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So let’s connect a few dots. Israel has killed something like 300 journalists since Oct. 7th, and continues to do so. Violation of international law and convention, all manner of condemnation, mean nothing. Through a program managed by AIPAC, Mossad provides surveillance, crowd control, interrogation methods, and media management to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in this country. D’you think this might be considerably bigger than even this outrageous, egregious violation of the First Amendment presents?
In the background, two related fundamentals: 1) Trump learned from his mentor Roy Cohn how to work the courts so that more often than not he still wins regardless of the offense and what the law says; 2) Mitch McConnell will be buried with that smirk on his face for engineering the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, and parallel wreckage through lower levels of the Federal judiciary. The Roberts Court is known more for strained, at best, legal decisions and reasoning than upholding Constitutional and other protections. D’you think last bulwark protecting our rights and freedoms means anything?
The chill in the air isn’t just meteorological.