Journalist Don Lemon (left) points a press release to media outdoors federal courtroom on Jan. 30, 2026 in Los Angeles.
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Unbiased journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have vowed to proceed reporting, following their arrests after overlaying an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.
Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and Fort, a Minnesota reporter, had been launched from federal custody on Friday, following criticism from human rights advocates and journalism organizations over their arrests.
A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Fort and Lemon on expenses associated to the interruption of a non secular service on the Cities Church in St. Paul, the place a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Each Fort and Lemon have maintained that they weren’t taking part within the protest on the church however had been reporting on the incident as journalists.
Talking throughout his YouTube present on Friday, Lemon mentioned that it is a second for journalists all over the world “to face up for one another.”
“It could have began with individuals having their due course of rights violated on the streets, violently violated on the streets. However now they’re making an attempt to silence journalists. And I can’t be silenced,” Lemon mentioned on his present.
Fort, a Minnesota native who filmed her arrest as federal brokers confirmed as much as her house early Friday, advised CNN’s Anderson Cooper shortly after her launch that she’s going to “proceed to inform the tales of my neighborhood.” She additionally mentioned the arrests have despatched “a chilling message” to the media trade.
“As journalists, we by no means need to be the story. However sadly, I did discover myself in a predicament the place I felt that I wanted to have the ability to inform my very own story, that I wanted the world to see that journalism is on trial,” Fort mentioned on Anderson Cooper 360°.
She added: “If they’ll criminalize a journalist right here in Minnesota, whether or not you are unbiased or not, I believe that we have seen a monitor document the place that is simply going to proceed to escalate.”
A federal Justice of the Peace decide beforehand declined to approve Lemon’s arrest, citing an absence of proof. Just a few days later, the chief federal appeals courtroom decide in Minnesota rejected a prosecutor’s enchantment of the choice, writing that there was “no proof” of any prison conduct in Lemon’s work.
Abbe Lowell, an lawyer representing Lemon, known as the arrest “an unprecedented assault on the First Modification” in a social media submit on Friday. Lowell additionally mentioned Lemon will “struggle these expenses vigorously and totally in courtroom.” Leita Walker, an lawyer for Fort, advised the Columbia Journalism Assessment that her consumer “might be vigorously defending herself in opposition to these expenses.”
Disclosure: This reporter and Don Lemon had been colleagues at CNN from August 2019 to April 2023.