Don Lemon said he was arrested by about a dozen federal agents in Los Angeles last week, even though he had offered to turn himself in to face federal civil rights charges in connection with his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church last month.
The former CNN news anchor was arrested late Thursday night and charged with interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers at a St. Paul church on Jan. 17. Lemon was covering the protest, in which demonstrators stormed the church and interrupted Sunday service, as an independent journalist.
On Monday, in his first interview since the incident, Lemon told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that his attorney had “tried to contact [federal authorities] once, maybe twice” to let them know he was willing to “just go in” to face the charges, but did not hear back from them.
Instead, he was dramatically arrested at his Beverly Hills hotel, where he was staying while covering the Grammy Awards.
“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, Lemon told the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host.
The independent journalist, who now hosts his eponymous show on YouTube, said he asked the agents to identify themselves. He also asked to see a warrant, but they did not have one.
“So they had to wait for someone from outside — an FBI guy — to show me a warrant on his cell phone,” Lemon said.
The entire operation was a “waste” of federal resources, he told Kimmel, noting that if he had been allowed to turn himself in, law enforcement “wouldn’t have to have all these people following me around.”
But it was also more than that, he added. “They want to embarrass you. They want to intimidate you. They want to instill fear. And so that’s why they did it that way.”
While saying he could not comment much on the case, Lemon reiterated he was not at the demonstration to protest.
“I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening,” he said. “I was following that one group around, and so that’s what I did. I reported on them.”
