{"id":442797,"date":"2026-02-01T12:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442797\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T12:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:53:11","slug":"don-lemon-georgia-fort-released-after-arrests-tied-to-anti-ice-protest-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/442797\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Lemon, Georgia Fort released after arrests tied to anti-ICE protest : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Journalist<\/p>\n

\n Journalist Don Lemon (left) issues a statement to media outside federal court on Jan. 30, 2026 in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Mario Tama\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

hide caption\n <\/p>\n

toggle caption<\/p>\n

Mario Tama\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have vowed to continue reporting, following their arrests after covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and Fort, a Minnesota reporter, were released from federal custody on Friday, following criticism from human rights advocates and journalism organizations over their arrests.<\/p>\n

A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Fort and Lemon on charges<\/a> related to the interruption of a religious service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Both Fort and Lemon have maintained that they were not participating in the protest at the church but were reporting on the incident as journalists.<\/p>\n

\"Journalist<\/a> <\/p>\n

Speaking during his YouTube show<\/a> on Friday, Lemon said that this is a moment for journalists around the world “to stand up for each other.”<\/p>\n

“It may have started with people having their due process rights violated on the streets, violently violated on the streets. But now they’re trying to silence journalists. And I will not be silenced,” Lemon said on his show.<\/p>\n

Fort, a Minnesota native who filmed her arrest<\/a> as federal agents showed up to her home early Friday, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper<\/a> shortly after her release that she will “continue to tell the stories of my community.” She also said the arrests have sent “a chilling message” to the media industry.<\/p>\n

“As journalists, we never want to be the story. But unfortunately, I did find myself in a predicament where I felt that I needed to be able to tell my own story, that I needed the world to see that journalism is on trial,” Fort said on Anderson Cooper 360\u00b0.<\/p>\n

She added: “If they can criminalize a journalist here in Minnesota, whether you’re independent or not, I think that we’ve seen a track record where this is just going to continue to escalate.”<\/p>\n

\"Washington<\/a> <\/p>\n

A federal magistrate judge previously declined to approve Lemon’s arrest, citing a lack of evidence. A few days later, the chief federal appeals court judge in Minnesota rejected a prosecutor’s appeal of the decision, writing that there was “no evidence” of any criminal behavior in Lemon’s work.<\/p>\n

Abbe Lowell, an attorney representing Lemon, called the arrest “an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment” in a social media post on Friday. Lowell also said Lemon will “fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.” Leita Walker, an attorney for Fort, told the Columbia Journalism Review<\/a> that her client “will be vigorously defending herself against these charges.”<\/p>\n

Disclosure: This reporter and Don Lemon were colleagues at CNN from August 2019 to April 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Journalist Don Lemon (left) issues a statement to media outside federal court on Jan. 30, 2026 in Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-442797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}