Appeals Court Rejects Justice Dept. Push for Arrest Warrant for Don Lemon
A federal appeals court on Friday turned down an extraordinary request from the Justice Department to force a judge to issue arrest warrants for Don Lemon, the journalist, and four other people in connection with a church protest in Minneapolis last week.
The department’s unusual petition, which was unsealed on Saturday along with other documents arising from the case, was a remarkably aggressive attempt by the Trump administration to strong-arm judges into doing its bidding. It prompted an equally remarkable pushback from the conservative chief federal judge in Minnesota, who called the petition “frivolous” and categorically rejected the administration’s efforts to depict its need for the warrants as what he described as a “national security emergency.”
The dispute also shows the boundary-pushing lengths to which Trump administration officials are willing to go in their efforts to crack down on what they see as criticism of the president’s aggressive immigration measures.
The fight over the warrants began Tuesday evening, when federal prosecutors presented a criminal complaint to Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko in the Federal District Court in Minneapolis, seeking the arrest of eight people in connection with the disruption of a church service in neighboring St. Paul, Minn., just days before. The protest was held because the pastor of the church apparently also works as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/us/politics/don-lemon-arrest-warrant.html
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