A top Justice Department official floated the idea Monday of charging ex-CNN host and journalist Don Lemon – who had reported on an anti-ICE demonstration at a Minnesota church Sunday – under an 1871 law designed to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
“Whenever anyone conspires to violate the protected civil rights of American citizens, the Klan Act can be used to bring a conspiracy charge,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who President Donald Trump tapped to help lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights office as its assistant attorney general. She was talking Monday on “The Benny Johnson Show.”
A group of protesters disrupted a church service in Minneapolis Sunday alleging its pastor – David Easterwood – is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lemon interviewed some of the protesters ahead of the incident, and followed them inside the church.
Dhillon, who is often seen arguing with and blocking her critics on social media, suggested that Lemon could face federal charges related to his involvement in the church disruption, arguing that the incident amounted to a violation of church goers’ civil rights.
“You have material support for disruptive activities, you have conspiracy to violate civil rights, you have potentially the use of other instrumentalities to commit crimes,” Dhillon said.
“And so some of these folks who did this have self-identified — Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility and then he began ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t!”
BREAKING: DOJ Announces Intention to Charge Don Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act. The KKK Act makes it illegal to threaten, hurt, or intimidate people to prevent them from exercising their God-given rights. HARMEET DHILLON: “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal… pic.twitter.com/GWnXAMtWc9 — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2026
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