More Than 40 Media Organizations, Including the New York Times, Urge Judge To Dismiss Charges Against Don Lemon

A group of more than 40 news outlets, including the New York Times and MS NOW, is urging the Justice Department to dismiss the charges against a fired CNN star, Don Lemon, over his alleged participation in an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church. In January, anti-ICE protesters entered Cities Church – on Saint Paul’s prestigious Summit Avenue – and disrupted a Sunday service. The protesters entered the church due to suspicions that one of the pastors was an ICE supervisor for his day job. Nine people — including Mr. Lemon — are facing federal charges of conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers. Mr. Lemon has said he was simply documenting the protest as a journalist and vowed to fight the charges. Prosecutors argue he was an active participant in the protest, not an observer. However, in a brief filed late last week, the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, along with the Times and more than three dozen other outlets asked a federal judge to drop the charges against Mr. Lemon and another independent local journalist, Georgia Fort. CNN was not listed among the outlets calling for the charges to be dropped. The filing notes that Mr. Lemon and Ms. Fort were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits the use of force or intimidation to prevent someone from accessing a place of worship or abortion clinic. They were also charged under Section 241 which prohibits anyone from conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United State“ The brief says that charge requires the government to show “that a defendant subjectively intended to deprive the covered individual of the protected right.”If the case is allowed to proceed, the brief warns, the government could use the FACE Act to “target journalists asking questions in public spaces.”The president of the Reporters Committee, Bruce Brown, said in a statement, “This is a case of clear government overreach, with the Justice Department attempting to deploy two highly potent civil rights laws to target journalists.”“On-the-ground news coverage is essential to the public’s ability to stay informed about important issues, and federal prosecutors cannot be allowed to misuse the law to punish such vital reporting,” Mr. Brown added. Earlier this month, Mr. Lemon filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him. In a filing, his lawyers argued that he has a “right to report on issues of intense national concern.”“Even assuming the protestors crossed the line from protected speech to criminal conduct, Mr. Lemon did not commit a crime in covering their actions as a journalist,” Mr. Lemon’s lawyers wrote. “From war correspondents embedded with the military during the Vietnam War to journalists who entered the U.S. Capitol while covering the January 6 protests, our country has long recognized that the First Amendment protects the rights of the media to cover newsworthy events and that journalistic proximity to crime does not equal complicity. Journalists routinely go where crimes are occurring.”Mr. Lemon has argued that the charges are politically motivated and that he is being targeted because President Trump dislikes him. Last month, a federal magistrate judge, Douglas Micko, ordered the government to turn over documents to determine whether the government misled a grand jury during the proceedings that led to the indictment against Mr. Lemon. A lawyer for Ms. Fort has alleged that the government presented false information, and falsely claimed that she chanted during the protest. Lawyers for the Justice Department insisted that no false information was presented to the grand jury.

More Than 40 Media Organizations, Including the New York Times, Urge Judge To Dismiss Charges Against Don Lemon

More Than 40 Media Organizations, Including the New York Times, Urge Judge To Dismiss Charges Against Don Lemon

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