LOS ANGELES — Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, according to an attorney statement posted on Lemon’s social media account Friday morning.

Three others, including another journalist, were also arrested on charges that they violated federal law during a protest last week at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to the Justice Department.

Lemon, an independent journalist who hosts his own YouTube show, was taken into custody early Friday in Beverly Hills while covering the upcoming Grammy Awards on Sunday, according to federal officials. A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service said Lemon is in federal custody.

“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 to account,” said the statement from Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell.

The arrests stem from a Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, where anti-ICE protesters burst into a church and disrupted the Sunday service. The church was targeted because an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field officer apparently serves as pastor.

Demonstrators pumped their fists in the air and chanted “ICE out!” as Lemon and other journalists documented the protest and interviewed congregants in the pews. Some called out the name of Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen who was fatally shot by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Lemon, 59, is being charged with Conspiracy to Deprive Rights and Violation of the FACE Act and interfering by force of someone’s First Amendment rights, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told The Times. James Blair, a deputy White House chief of staff, said in an X post Friday that Lemon had been indicted by a federal grand jury.

“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced on social media. “More details soon.”

She later shared a video, stating that “under President Trump’s leadership and this administration you have the right to worship freely and safely.”

“And if I haven’t been clear already,” Bondi added, “if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

In a media statement, Lemon’s attorney rejected the assertion that he had done anything criminal.

“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful 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,” the statement read. “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.”

After the protest, senior Trump administration officials attempted to charge eight people, including Lemon, citing a law that protects people seeking to participate in a church service.

But a federal magistrate judge in Minnesota approved charges against only three people, citing insufficient evidence that Lemon and others had conspired to deprive rights by interfering with someone’s religious freedom in a house of worship. Prominent local activists, including Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Louisa Allen, were arrested Jan. 22. Meanwhile, the Justice Department petitioned a federal appeals court to force the judge to issue arrest warrants for Lemon and four other people. The request was denied.

On Jan. 23, Bondi told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the Department of Justice would continue to try to prosecute anyone who targeted a house of worship, including Lemon, whom she called “an online agitator.”

“If you protested and went into that church on the Sunday and you terrorized the parishioners, we are coming after you,” Bondi said. “I don’t care who you are. If you’re a failed CNN journalist, you have no right to do that in this country. We don’t live in a third world country.”

Lemon has argued he entered the church as a journalist, not a protester, and is protected by the Constitution: “So, this is what the First Amendment is about,” he said.

However, the First Amendment does not apply to private spaces. Some legal experts have suggested a defense based on the First Amendment would hinge on whether the church’s Sunday service was open to the public.

In a social media post days before the Jan. 18 service, the church called for people to “join us.” After the incident, the church responded on its website and agitators “jarringly disrupted our worship gathering” and created “a scene marked by intimidation and threat” that it described as an “unlawful” action.

A call and request for information from Cities Church about whether its Jan. 18 service was open to the public was not immediately answered.

“If the church was open to the public and Don Lemon was serving as a journalist covering the protest — both of which I understand to be the case — there are serious First Amendment concerns with arresting and prosecuting Lemon,” said Jean-Paul Jassy, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in the 1st Amendment. “This concern is heightened here as courts already rejected a warrant for lack of probable cause. It is very clear that this is a politically motivated attack on freedom of the press.”

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney who has represented Mary Trump and Jim Acosta and is renowned for several First Amendment cases, called Lemon’s arrest a “dark and dangerous day for the First Amendment and democracy.”

“Indeed, it’s a double violation of the First Amendment,” he said, “squelching freedom of the press and also seeking to chill and muzzle the voices of citizens who are protesting government action by punishing the journalists who report on them.”

Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023. The network cited reports of inappropriate behavior, including an on-air comment that GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley was “past her prime.”

Since the protest, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, has posted repeatedly on social media about Lemon, referring to him as a “pseudo-journalist.” In one post on X, Dhillon said: “Even if one is a journalist, that doesn’t create immunity from criminal liability for criminal conduct.”

On Friday, agents were at the door of independent journalist Georgia Fort for her role in the Jan. 18 incident. Fort posted a video on Facebook calling the case against her a violation of her constitutional rights. She said federal agents arrived at her home at 6:30 a.m. and informed her that they had secured a grand jury indictment. Her attorney advised her to surrender herself.

Fort said she had documented the protest at Cities Church as a journalist.

“I don’t feel I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press,” she said in the video. “It is hard to understand how we have a Constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”

In a statement early Friday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass referred to Lemon as “an internationally known and renowned journalist and friend.” Bass said Lemon was in custody in L.A. “simply for doing his job and following a protest into a church in Minneapolis while reporting the story.”

“Let me be very clear: President Trump is not de-escalating anything after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents,” the mayor’s statement said. “In fact, the arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort demonstrates quite the opposite — he is escalating.”

Chuck Schumer, minority leader of the U.S. Senate, called for Lemon to be released immediately.

“Once again, the administration is behaving no differently from the police states and authoritarian regimes across history — they’ve arrested a journalist for the crime of doing his job,” Schumer said. “Let’s be very clear — this arrest is not just about one journalist in once incident. This is a message to journalists everywhere: If you dare criticize this administration, watch your back. That is not democracy. That is a police state and that is pure authoritarian bile.”

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Times staff writers Joseph Serna, James Queally and Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

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