Ex-CNN host Don Lemon pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Minnesota on Friday over his alleged participation in an anti-ICE mob that stormed a St. Paul church last month.
Lemon livestreamed as he accompanied a group of anti-ICE agitators who sat in the Sunday service at Cities Church before loudly interrupting and terrorizing congregants. The video showed Lemon appearing to cover for the group as they met to discuss their plans ahead of time.
Lemon described the operation as a “secret” and said, “[I] can’t tell you what is going to happen, but you’re going to watch it live unfold here on the Don Lemon Show.”
At one point, he said he “turned our camera off of them because they’re giving some critical information here.”
Lemon could also be seen thanking Nekima Levy Armstrong, who is also charged for her alleged role in leading the mob, and kissing her on the cheek. The ex-CNN anchor appeared in court on Friday alongside Armstrong and three other defendants.
Federal authorities arrested Lemon in Los Angeles late last month, charging him with conspiracy to violate the right of religious freedom at a house of worship.
He was also charged with violations of the FACE Act, which prohibits the disruption of worship services. The Biden administration infamously weaponized the FACE Act against peaceful anti-abortion protesters.
Lemon has maintained that his actions during the church-storming incident are protected by the First Amendment since he was there under the guise of being an independent journalist.
He could be heard in his livestream telling multiple parishioners that he was “not part of the group.”
“I’m just here photographing, I’m a journalist,” he said.
“We’re here just chronicling and reporting. We’re not part of the activist, but we’re here just reporting on them,” he said at another point.
An attorney representing Cities Church said Lemon is not immune from prosecution.
“By pleading not guilty, Don Lemon and other defendants are doubling down on their claim that the press can do whatever they want under the auspices of journalism, while also defending the invasion of a church. This was a coordinated planned operation,” Renee Carlson, General Counsel for True North Legal, said Friday.
“The First Amendment does not protect premeditated schemes to violate the sanctity of a sanctuary, disrupt worship services, or intimidate children. There is no ‘press pass’ to trespass on church property or conspire to invade religious worship,” Carlson said, adding “It is not ‘journalism’ to accost a pastor who was about to read Scripture to his congregation.”
During Friday’s hearing, Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lead attorney, asked for his client’s phone back after federal authorities confiscated it during his arrest, according to the Associated Press.
The phone is currently in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security and a search warrant for it is sealed, prosecutors said, adding that it can’t be returned until a search is completed.
When he exited the church, Lemon acknowledged the terror inflicted upon worshippers as he pointed out a father hugging his distraught child.
“You have to make people uncomfortable in these times. If you see how uncomfortable … and how harsh people are being treated on the streets, you have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable. That is what this country is about,” he later said.
Lemon also engaged in a debate with one of the parishioners who accused the ex-CNN host of merely posing “as a journalist.”
READ MORE: All The Times Don Lemon Made The Case Against Himself In His Livestream
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