A federal appeals court on Friday turned down an extraordinary request from the Justice Department to force a judge to issue arrest warrants for Don Lemon, the journalist, and four other people in connection with a church protest in Minneapolis last week.
The department’s unusual petition, which was unsealed on Saturday along with other documents arising from the case, was a remarkably aggressive attempt by the Trump administration to strong-arm judges into doing its bidding. It prompted an equally remarkable pushback from the conservative chief federal judge in Minnesota, who called the petition “frivolous” and categorically rejected the administration’s efforts to depict its need for the warrants as what he described as a “national security emergency.”
The dispute also shows the boundary-pushing lengths to which Trump administration officials are willing to go in their efforts to crack down on what they see as criticism of the president’s aggressive immigration measures.
The fight over the warrants began Tuesday evening, when federal prosecutors presented a criminal complaint to Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko in the Federal District Court in Minneapolis, seeking the arrest of eight people in connection with the disruption of a church service in neighboring St. Paul, Minn., just days before. The protest was held because the pastor of the church apparently also works as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.
After considering the complaint, Judge Micko found there was probable cause to issue warrants for three of the suspects — Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly — all of whom were ultimately taken into custody on Thursday. But he refused to approve warrants for the other five people, including Mr. Lemon, who had been working as an independent reporter, and his producer, the unsealed court papers said.
Almost immediately, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Daniel N. Rosen, who was appointed by President Trump last year, notified the district’s chief judge, Patrick J. Schiltz, that he wanted another judge to review Judge Micko’s decision — a highly unusual move.
Typically, Judge Schiltz wrote in a letter to the appeals court, if the government is unsatisfied with a magistrate’s refusal to sign warrants, it can either “improve” its affidavit making the request and present it again, or it can set aside its criminal complaint and try a different way to charge the suspects: by seeking a grand jury indictment.
“It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. attorney requested is unheard-of in our district or, as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit,” wrote Judge Schiltz, a staunch Republican appointed by President George W. Bush. “I have surveyed all of our judges — some of whom have been judges in our district for over 40 years — and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review a magistrate judge’s denial of an arrest warrant.”
Moreover, Judge Schiltz wrote, three of the people whose warrants were denied had not been charged with committing any violence, but at worst had been accused of “yelling horrible things at the members of the church.” He added there was no evidence that Mr. Lemon or his producer had engaged “in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”
At first, Judge Schiltz sought to take a measured path in response to the request by Mr. Rosen, a longtime commercial litigator who had little experience in prosecuting criminal cases when he took over as U.S. attorney in October.
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Noting that the request was “unprecedented” and had prompted “strong and differing views” from his fellow judges, Judge Schiltz told Mr. Rosen that he would not decide what to do about the warrants until he had discussed the issue at a meeting with his colleagues scheduled for this past Wednesday.
But the meeting was postponed because of security concerns arising from Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Minneapolis this week. And Judge Schiltz informed Mr. Rosen that he would make a decision about the warrants after the next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
Instead of waiting, however, the Justice Department filed a direct request on Friday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which sits over Judge Schiltz, seeking an order directing a judge in the lower court to sign the complaint and immediately issue arrest warrants for the five remaining suspects.
The warrants were “urgently needed,” department officials wrote, “to protect the public safety from concrete, credible threats of criminal activity this weekend.”
Mr. Rosen echoed those concerns in an email to Judge Schiltz the day before the petition was sent to the appeals court.
“Copycat raiders of places of worship are an immediate danger as we approach Saturday and Sunday,” he wrote, “and the Department of Justice has determined that deterrence of such raiders is essential to protecting the safety of worshipers nationwide.”
But Judge Schiltz rejected the idea that there was an emergency in his correspondence with Mr. Rosen and with the appeals court.
“I do not believe that the applications present an actual emergency,” he told Mr. Rosen. “You have already arrested Ms. Levy Armstrong and Ms. Allen, and those arrests are receiving international publicity. That should provide plenty of deterrence.”
“I doubt very much,” the judge went on, “that anyone who is still contemplating raiding a church will change his mind if three or four more demonstrators are arrested.”
When a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit denied Mr. Rosen’s emergency request, it did so in a single-page order that gave little reason for the decision. It is unclear what the Justice Department may do next to try to obtain the warrants.
The Justice Department has clashed with federal judges several times over immigration issues. Those fights have come in cases involving the deportation of scores of Venezuelan immigrants under a wartime statute called the Alien Enemies Act and in proceedings focused on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last year and then brought back to face criminal charges.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
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