Department of Justice prosecutors are reportedly “beside themselves” at Don Lemon’s arrest and are refusing to pursue the case.
The 59-year-old journalist, former CNN anchor, and outspoken Trump critic was arrested in Los Angeles on early Friday morning on charges related to his appearance at an anti-ICE protest in a St. Paul, Minnesota, church on January 18.
MAGA personalities on social media and members of the Trump administration called for Lemon’s arrest in the wake of the protest, but the journalist maintained that he was at the protest in a professional capacity.
Career DOJ lawyers from Minnesota and Los Angeles believe the arrest of Lemon is another example of the Trump administration pursuing a political enemy on a trumped-up charge.
MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig said on Friday’s Ana Cabrera Reports that DOJ prosecutors in Minnesota were “very concerned and declined to participate in this, because they don’t believe the Don Lemon charges will actually stand up.”
“Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles also registered concern, and some of them declined to participate in this because, again, they have a duty of candor to the court,” Leonnig added. “They don’t feel comfortable bringing cases and pursuing cases where they do not think the facts line up with the charges.”
Lemon has been charged with “conspiracy to deprive rights and interfering with First Amendment rights,” per the Justice Department.
The Justice Department is arguing that Lemon violated 18 USC 241, which makes it illegal for “two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
Lemon’s defense team is leaning on his career as a journalist. His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement, “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. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work,” the statement reads.
Minnesota Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko denied a petition to arrest Lemon last week, agreeing that Lemon was covering the church protest as a journalist and not participating in it. An appeals court upheld that ruling last Friday.
Nevertheless, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Lemon’s arrest. The journalist was taken into custody in Los Angeles, where he was set to cover this weekend’s Grammy Awards, and is being held in the Federal Courthouse in L.A.
Leonnig reported that DOJ lawyers were sick of the administration’s political games.
“The sources I’ve spoken to across this huge Department of Justice are kind of beside themselves,” said Leonnig. “Like, ‘When is it going to end? When is this idea of using our Justice Department, which is supposed to be based on facts and law, when is it going to stick to that norm and that expectation that the U.S. public has?’”
Leonnig compared Lemon’s case to those brought against Trump foes James Comey and Letitia James in the Eastern District of Virginia.
In September 2025, Trump fired Erik Siebert, the former U.S. Attorney for the district whom he appointed, after Siebert declined to pursue a legally dubious case against New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump then appointed his former insurance lawyer, 36-year-old Lindsey Halligan, to the position, and she secured the indictment.
A judge threw out the indictments against James and former FBI director James Comey, who also faced a legally dubious charge in the Eastern District of Virginia, ruling that Halligan was appointed illegally.
In Minnesota, the District Attorney is Dan Rosen, a lawyer with 30 years of experience in commercial litigation. Leonnig said he has “no experience as a prosecutor, which will sound familiar to a lot of you on the panel, because that was one of the major problems in the Eastern District of Virginia.”
Even as Lemon won the initial legal battles against him related to the protest appearance, he anticipated that the Trump administration would find an excuse to arrest him anyway.
“It doesn’t matter if there’s no law to fit. They will try to fit or retrofit something or go around a judge and just do it themselves,” Lemon told Scripps News last week.
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