In a major breach of decorum, a rowdy mob of anti-ICE protesters, led by ex-CNN host Don Lemon, stormed St. Paul’s City Church in Minnesota during Sunday services, disrupting worship over claims a pastor aided ICE deportations amid riots fueled by the death of Renee Nicole Good, who died at the hands of an ICE agent during a protest that turned violent in Minneapolis. Reacting to the situation, the Trump DOJ, led by Harmeet Dhillon, has announced an investigation into possible probes of FACE Act/KKK Act violations for interfering with the religious rights of the churchgoers.
Reacting to the aggressive move, Minnesota AG Ellison dismissed the allegations, claiming FACE is limited to abortion clinics, which is entirely untrue. Likewise, Lemon defended the inappropriate actions as journalism. However, the pastor at the center of the scandal decried intimidation.
Minimizing the grave situation, the irritating Democratic Minnesota AG said, “And the FACE Act, by the way, is designed to protect the rights of people seeking reproductive rights… so that people for a religious reason cannot just use religion to break into women’s reproductive health centers.” That came when he spoke to Don Lemon on his YouTube show.
Continuing his absurd comments to the disgraced former CNN host, Ellison added, “How they are stretching either of these laws to apply to people who protested in a church over the behavior of a religious leader is beyond me.”
Fighting back in a post to X, Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ Assistant AG for Civil Rights, stated, “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service,” adding, “You are on notice.”
“It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there. That framing is telling,” Don Lemon reacted, still refusing to accept any responsibility for his actions.
Still not done playing the victim, he whined, “What’s even more telling is the barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs, directed at me online by MAGA supporters and amplified by parts of the right-wing press.”
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Finally bringing his complaints to an end, Lemon alleged, “If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good— the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place.”
Watch Lemon and Ellison here:
“The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes. It’s a law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens,” Harmeet Dhillon said to counter these disengenous arguments. Building on this point, she said, “Whenever people conspire this, the Klan Act can be used… Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time.”
Concluding her threats directed toward Lemon, Dhillon declared, “Journalism is not a shield when you are involved in a crime. The video shows how close he was with these people. He clearly knew what was going to happen. It was a violation of federal law.”