NEWS HEADLINES: DOJ investigating potential federal violations after anti‑ICE protest disrupts St. Paul church, Don Lemon put ‘On Notice’

OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:31 PM – Monday, January 19, 2026

The Department of Justice has formally placed left-wing independent journalist Don Lemon “on notice” following his involvement in the disruption of a Sunday worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The probe targets both the activists who entered the sanctuary and Lemon, who filmed the event.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced that the Civil Rights Division is investigating whether Lemon’s presence — and his alleged foreknowledge of the “church storming” — constitutes a violation of the federal FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

While Lemon claims that he was acting in a purely journalistic capacity, federal officials have argued that his actions crossed the line into a criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the congregation.

Dhillon issued a public rebuke on X, stating that Lemon, a former CNN anchor who was fired in 2023, is now “on notice” for his purported role in participating in and enabling the interruption of a religious service.

“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. You are on notice!” Dhillon declared.

The assistant attorney general also indicated that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is now investigating the incident under statutes including the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which federal authorities have increasingly applied to protect religious sites.

Attorney General Pam Bondi supported this stance as well, vowing that “the intimidation of Christians” would be met with the “full force of federal law.”

On Sunday, approximately 30-to-40 unruly protesters — organized in part by social justice activist and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, Nekima Levy Armstrong — barged into the church during worship time. The group, affiliated with left-wing networks protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), could be heard shouting slogans like “ICE out!,” “Justice for Renee Good!,” and “Hands up, don’t shoot!” Armstrong responded to the backlash on Monday, calling the federal probe a “sham” designed to distract from the “atrocities” committed by ICE agents.

The protest reportedly targeted Pastor David Easterwood, whom protesters claimed serves as the acting director of ICE’s St. Paul Field Office. While Easterwood is a listed pastor at Cities Church, independent verification of his specific ICE rank remains a point of ongoing scrutiny. Nonetheless, the Associated Press and CBS News identified Easterwood as the acting director of that particular ICE field office.

Lemon, who livestreamed the confrontation while conducting interviews, attempted to defend his actions as protected by the First Amendment. He characterized the backlash as an attempt to intimidate him, asserting that the “freedom to protest” is a core American value.

In comments after the incident, Lemon also suggested that some of the criticism he faced from religious groups stemmed from a sense of “entitlement” tied to “White supremacy.” Dhillon countered this defense, however, maintaining that religious spaces are not public forums for protest.

Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell denounced the interruption as “shameful,” stating that the congregation had gathered solely “to worship Jesus,” and churchgoers described the intrusion as “terrifying” — particularly for the children in attendance.

“Agitators aren’t just targeting our officers. Now they’re targeting churches, too,” the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency stated. “They’re going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans.”

However, despite Lemon’s claims of innocent reporting and no advance knowledge of the events, he appeared to admit that he was embedded with anti-ICE activists in Minneapolis and had prior awareness of their plans before they disrupted the Sunday service.

In a livestream from a parking lot in the Twin Cities, Lemon described having conducted “reconnaissance” alongside activist groups in preparation for what became known as the storming of Cities Church, including following their planned “Operation Pull-Up.”

“These are resistance protesters, they’re planning an operation we’re going to follow them on. I can’t tell you exactly what they’re doing, but it’s called ‘Operation Pull-Up,’” Lemon said during the livestream. “It’s Nekima Armstrong, she’s been doing this since George Floyd, Daunte Wright and others, where they surprise people, catch them off-guard and hold them to account,” he added, while name-dropping the leader of the abrupt “protest.”

“So that’s what we’re doing here, and after we do this operation, you’ll see it live, these operations are surprise operations, again I can’t tell you where they’re going,” he continued.

After facing the public warning from Dhillon, Lemon continued to push back, attempting to distance himself from the Minneapolis church disruption he livestreamed.

While Dhillon threatened him with charges under the Ku Klux Klan Act for “pseudo-journalism,” Lemon appeared to walk back any alignment with the demonstrators, insisting in a TikTok statement that he has “no affiliation” with the group and was strictly documenting the event as a reporter.

“I had no affiliations with that organization. I didn’t even know they were going to this church until we followed them. We were there chronicling protests,” Lemon claimed.

“Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people who were involved, which included the pastor, members of the church, and members of the organization. That’s it.”

Meanwhile, the confrontation follows a period of heightened unrest in the Twin Cities following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that, at the time, Good was impeding and stalking ICE officers during an immigration enforcement operation. Good then purportedly “weaponized her vehicle” by attempting to run over or ram an ICE officer after refusing orders to exit her car. This was characterized as an “act of domestic terrorism” by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who reiterated that Good had been blocking officers and shouting at them, before driving her vehicle toward an agent in a manner that posed an imminent threat.

The lawless disruption at Cities Church also underscores a broader pattern in which left-wing activists and agitators are increasingly directing protests at local institutions and individuals they believe are connected to federal immigration enforcement, signaling an escalation from policy-focused protests to much more unruly confrontations.

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