Don Lemon says about a dozen federal agents came to his Los Angeles hotel to arrest him overnight on 30 January, even though the former CNN anchor’s attorney had told authorities he would turn himself in to face federal civil rights charges over his coverage of an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service.
Lemon on Monday told ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that sending the agents was a waste of resources because law enforcement wouldn’t have had to dispatch agents to follow him if he had been allowed to surrender to authorities.
“I was walking up to the room and I pressed the elevator button, and then all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled and people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” the independent journalist said Monday on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show.
He asked the agents who they were and said they identified themselves. Lemon asked to see a warrant and was told they didn’t have it. The agents then summoned an FBI agent to come in from outside to show Lemon the warrant on a cell phone.
The justice department and FBI didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Kimmel introduced Lemon, his first guest of the night, by saying he was “was arrested for committing journalism”.
Lemon’s attorney has said Lemon plans to plead not guilty. He told reporters “I will not be silenced” after, later in the day Friday, he was released from federal custody pending the outcome of the case in response to a judge’s orders.
A grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon; Georgia Fort, another independent journalist; and others on charges of conspiracy and interfering with worshippers’ constitutional rights to freely exercise their religion during the 18 January protest at the Cities Church in St Paul, where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official is a pastor.
Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023 following a bumpy run as a morning host, has said he had no affiliation to the group that disrupted the Sunday service by entering the church.
He said he couldn’t say much about the case – but he said he was not a protester.
“I went there to be a journalist,” Lemon said. “I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening. I was following that one group around, and so that’s what I did. I reported on them.”
Lemon said he asked the arresting officers if they would let him make a phone call. He said he was told no and that he could talk to his attorney the next day. He tried to use his Apple Watch’s virtual assistant Siri to call his husband and his attorney but neither picked up.
A diamond bracelet he was wearing kept getting caught on his handcuffs, which hurt, and the agents told Lemon they would take it off. Lemon said he asked if the agent would mind taking it up to Lemon’s husband in his hotel room and they agreed to do that.
“And that’s how my husband found out,” Lemon said. “Otherwise, no one would have known where I was.”
Lemon said he was kept in a holding room at the federal courthouse from midnight until 1pm the following day.
Kimmel himself became a symbol of a fight against censorship when ABC temporarily suspended his show for remarks made following the 10 September murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairperson, had pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air shortly before that.
ABC lifted the suspension after a public outcry, and Kimmel returned to the air with much stronger ratings than he had before. In Congress, Democratic senators raised concerns that Carr’s actions trampled on the constitutional right to free speech.