Feds Arrest Journalist Don Lemon in Church Protest Case

INSIDE: Pam Bondi ... Thomas Albus ... Tulsi Gabbard

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Judge Already Said No Evidence of Crime

Journalist Don Lemon was covering a Grammy’s event in Los Angeles last evening (pictured above) when he was arrested on federal charges relating to the anti-ICE church protest he covered in St. Paul on Jan. 18, his attorney says. The church was a target of protesters because one of its pastors also works as the acting director of the ICE field office in St. Paul.

The unspecified new charges against the former CNN anchor came after a federal magistrate judge in Minnesota had already rejected a warrant for Lemon’s arrest. Of the eight originally targeted defendants, which included six protestors plus Lemon and his producer, the magistrate only approved three arrest warrants.

The Trump Justice Department then appealed on an emergency basis to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an effort to force the chief district judge to overrule the magistrate’s decision. The appeals court declined last week to do so.

In the course of the rapid-fire appeal, the chief judge dismissed out of hand criminal charges against Lemon and his producer, writing in an extraordinary letter to the appeals court:

The government lumps all eight protestors together and says things that are true of some but not all of them. Two of the five protestors were not protestors at all; instead they were a journalist and his producer. There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.

News of Lemon’s Thursday night arrest broke Friday morning after his attorney, Abbe Lowell, released a statement:

“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.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi later confirmed the arrest of Lemon and three others — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy — in a post on X, accusing them of a “coordinated attack” on the church.

It’s not clear which federal agency arrested Lemon, who was due to appear in federal court in Los Angeles this morning, the NYT reported.

Judges Rail Against Trump DOJ’s Conduct

In addition to his unusually frank exchanges with the appeals court in the Lemon case, you probably saw that U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, the chief judge in the Minnesota district, also blasted ICE this week for defying 96 court orders in 78 cases since Jan. 1 in that state alone.

Schiltz was not the only one. In two other cases this week in different states, federal judges have excoriated the Trump DOJ for its conduct in immigrant detention cases.

At issue has been the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy, a new unilateral interpretation of federal law that it rolled out last year. Judges around the country have been rejecting the administration’s interpretation in droves, but some of them have also been deeply disturbed by how the Justice Department keeps advancing the same argument without acknowledging the many losses.

Here’s U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton of the Middle District of Florida, who was so incensed that he has ordered the U.S. attorney and the assistant U.S. attorney on this case to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for their conduct:

If the Government is going to argue for expanding the interpretation of a law or maintain a widely rejected position to preserve its appellate rights, it may do so. But its lawyers must make those arguments in a way that comports with their professional obligations, as lawyers have done since time immemorial: Cite the contrary binding authority and argue why it’s wrong. Don’t hide the ball. Don’t ignore the overwhelming weight of persuasive authority as if it won’t be found. And don’t send a sacrificial lamb to stand before this Court with a fistful of cases that don’t apply and no cogent argument for why they should.

The other related issue is that the Justice Department seems overwhelmed by the sheer number of detention cases, unable to keep up and therefore coming into court with little information or facts about the cases. That prompted this withering assessment from U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in the Southern District of West Virginia:

The Government presented no witnesses. It offered no affidavits. It introduced no testimony. The Government put no one on the stand: not an arresting officer or an immigration officer or a custodian or a decisionmaker. It offered no warrant, of any kind, nor did it offer evidence that any warrant was sought or obtained. … Basic questions about Petitioner’s detention were also left unanswered. When asked who ordered the stop, why the vehicle was stopped, what legal authority was invoked, what facts were known at the time, what statements were made, what notice was given, what process was available, and when any hearing would occur; the Government repeatedly answered: “I don’t know.” …

Here, the Government presented no evidence. This was not a technical failure. It was a complete one.

In both cases, the detainees were ordered released.

Big Lie Never Ends: Georgia Edition

Two of the big questions coming out of the FBI seizure of Fulton County’s 2020 voting records are partially, if unsatisfactorily, answered:

• Why did the U.S. attorney in St. Louis sign a search warrant in Atlanta? Thomas Albus received a special appointment by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate what the right wing cunningly refers to as “election integrity” cases nationwide, according to Bloomberg.

• Why on earth was DNI Tulsi Gabbard present for the FBI search of the Fulton County voting hub? Gabbard is leading the administration’s effort to re-litigate the 2020 election and look for potential crimes, the WSJ reports, all part of President Trump’s larger campaign of retribution for losing his re-election bid. It also appears to be part of a preemptive effort to tee up executive orders ahead of this year’s midterms:

[Gabbard] has regularly briefed Trump and chief of staff Susie Wiles about her inquiry in recent months along with others involved in the investigation. Those include senior Justice Department officials, Trump’s outside ally and lawyer Cleta Mitchell and Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who pushed claims in 2020 that the election was stolen and joined the administration as a special government employee. …

She is expected to prepare a report on her work, the people said. The administration has discussed executive orders on voting ahead of the midterm elections, two of the officials said.

Stay tuned.

Thanks For Coming Out Last Night!

Many thanks to everyone who joined us last night in D.C., despite the frigid weather and stubborn ice, for the first Morning Memo Live event. Huge props for the reader who trekked all the way from Newport News, Virginia, for our discussion of the politicization of the Justice Department.

I am indebted to our fantastic panelists, who all brought their A games: Stacey Young, Kyle Freeny, and Anna Bower were knowledgeable, witty, self-effacing, and super engaging.

At one point the Q&A veered into the question of hope versus optimism, and Kyle re-upped this Václav Havel quote as a guidepost for our current predicament:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Amen.

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