{"id":2544729,"date":"2026-01-20T07:48:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/don-lemon-is-relevant-again-he-should-be-in-federal-custody\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T07:50:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:50:27","slug":"don-lemon-is-relevant-again-he-should-be-in-federal-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/don-lemon-is-relevant-again-he-should-be-in-federal-custody\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Lemon Is Relevant Again. He Should Be In Federal Custody"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdon-lemon-is-relevant-again-he-should-be-in-federal-custody%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2544729&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>An opinion piece in the Federalist describes anti-ICE protesters storming Cities Church in St. Paul during services,accusing a pastor (identified as david Easterwood) of ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The author condemns the disruption as a desecration of worship and repeatedly criticizes former CNN host Don Lemon, who was on site and questioned church leaders; the piece portrays Lemon as an attention-seeker and accuses him of socio-political grandstanding. Pastor Jonathan parnell&#8217;s rebuke of the interruption is quoted and cited as broadly representative of &#8220;reasonable&#8221; reaction,and figures such as Bishop Robert Barron and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon are noted as denouncing the action and discussing possible legal consequences. The article urges prosecution under federal statutes (the FACE act and the ku klux Klan Act) and characterizes the protest and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trumps-nbc-treason-investigation-would-violate-constitution-white-house-says\/\" title=\"Trump&#039;s NBC &#039;treason&#039; inve...igation would violate Con...itution, White House says\">surrounding media coverage<\/a> as performative outrage and &#8220;martyr-making.&#8221; It also recounts Lemon&#8217;s denial of formal affiliation with the organizers and his contention that critics are motivated by racism and homophobia; the author dismisses those defenses and frames the episode as both a legal matter and a media-driven spectacle.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>He had to desecrate a house of worship to do it, but has-been &ldquo;journalist&rdquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/01\/19\/like-don-lemon-our-entire-corporate-press-is-literally-just-doing-far-left-activism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> Don Lemon<\/a> is relevant again.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Lemon, the disgraced former CNN host who makes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.al.com\/life\/2025\/01\/cnn-anchor-quits-says-of-trump-dont-give-into-lies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jim Acosta<\/a> sound semi-sane, &ldquo;covered&rdquo; the anti-ICE mob that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/prominent-catholic-bishop-slams-anti-ice-agitators-who-disrupted-church-service-unacceptable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stormed<\/a> into St. Paul&rsquo;s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.citieschurch.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> Cities Church<\/a> during services Sunday. Churchgoers were treated to a despicable show by the left&rsquo;s protest machine, with radicals screaming &ldquo;ICE out!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Justice for Renee Good,&rdquo; as stunned congregants watched the invasion of their house of God.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Why the bedlam? The psychos allege one of the church&rsquo;s pastors, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/01\/19\/christian-leaders-urge-worshippers-rights-after-protesters-interrupt-service-00735905\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David Easterwood,<\/a> is the acting Immigration &amp; Customs Enforcement director in St. Paul. So they grabbed their torches and pitchforks and played havoc on the church.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A group of anti-ICE protesters stormed a church over the weekend during a church service and accused a pastor of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eI9CjgWOlh\">https:\/\/t.co\/eI9CjgWOlh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NewsChannel 8 | KTUL (@KTULNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KTULNews\/status\/2013310500352708828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2>&lsquo;This is Shameful&rsquo;<\/h2>\n<p>Petulant Lemon, whom Joseph Massey described as &ldquo;the most deranged white liberal woman in Minneapolis,&rdquo; just happened to be in the neighborhood when the disturbance began, or so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-15478491\/don-lemon-anti-ice-church-protest-response-federal-charges.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">he claims<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Why are you not with the protesters? Why are you not standing up for the Latino and Somali communities?&rdquo; a bearded man in a longshoreman&rsquo;s hat and hatred in his eyes screamed at an old parishioner, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ki-bjDQpWec\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">livestreamed video<\/a> shows. &ldquo;This is the house of the devil,&rdquo; the creepy leftist yelled, perhaps deranged enough to believe that he was playing out the role of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%2021:12-17,Mark%2011:15-19,Luke%2019:45-48,John%202:13-16&amp;version=NRSVUE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jesus driving out the merchants and the money lenders<\/a> from the temple. If so, he was very wrong.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There was plenty of indignation from the mob, none of it righteous. The agitators shut down church services to protest the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And Lemon was there to bombard church officials with accusation-stained questions, sticking his tiny microphone in the faces of church members. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;What do you think of this?&rdquo; Lemon smugly asked the church&rsquo;s lead pastor, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jonathanparnell?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jonathan Parnell<\/a>, who delivered an answer that sums up today&rsquo;s American left.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I mean this is unacceptable. This is shameful. It&rsquo;s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship,&rdquo; Parnell <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ghmccallum\/status\/2013069052072063384\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>. The pastor&rsquo;s words might just prove to be a rallying cry for reasonable voters in this year&rsquo;s midterm elections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Jonathan displayed such Christ-honoring grace in how he responded to this vile behavior. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2e4jzIEhD9\">https:\/\/t.co\/2e4jzIEhD9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; George McCallum (@ghmccallum) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ghmccallum\/status\/2013069052072063384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The radical stunt was widely denounced. Not necessarily by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/white-house-says-walz-frey-incited-chaos-after-anti-ice-mob-storms-minneapolis-church\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Minnesota Democrats and their fellow leftists<\/a> around the country, but by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/woman-has-courage-to-say-what-millions-of-americans-are-thinking-im-done-with-this-covid-insanity\/\" title=\"Woman Has Courage to Say What Millions of Americans Are Thinking \u201cI\u2019m Done\u201d With this COVID Insanity\">sane people<\/a> who saw the anti-ICE chorus&rsquo; latest performance as a bridge too far.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I don&rsquo;t care what is animating or annoying you, I don&rsquo;t care what your political persuasion might be, invading a church is unacceptable and is a violation of religious liberty.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BishopBarron\/status\/2013288032091124178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2>&lsquo;You&rsquo;re the Biggest Name&rsquo;<\/h2>\n<p>But Lemon, who burned his bridge at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-65380349\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CNN in 2023<\/a> and has been toiling in the shadow of his <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/03\/26\/media\/the-don-lemon-show-in-tailspin-after-being-dumped-by-elon-musk-nobody-is-watching\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">own obscurity<\/a>, is relevant again. At least for the moment. And he&rsquo;s loving every minute of it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Always the attention whore, Lemon is now the talk of the town. He&rsquo;s definitely drawn attention from the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on Monday said the DOJ will &ldquo;pursue charges,&rdquo; singling out Lemon whose claims of being an independent &ldquo;journalist&rdquo; is one of his biggest crimes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility,&rdquo; Dhillon said on <em>The Benny Show<\/em>. &ldquo;He went into the facility, and then he began &mdash; quote, unquote &mdash; &lsquo;committing journalism,&rsquo; as if that&rsquo;s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The jury is still out on whether a DOJ with a lackluster record over the first year of Trump 2.0 will do more than launch investigations, hold press conferences and fire out tweets. <\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Civil penalties are not enough. Put these people in prison before they shoot up another Christian church or school. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YIocX9URf5\">https:\/\/t.co\/YIocX9URf5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanmdav\/status\/2013279972081770737?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 19, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Lemon has backpeddled on previous claims of his involvement in the protest, telling The New York Post that he had no affiliation with the group that organized it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t even know they were going to this church until we followed them. We were there chronicling protests,&rdquo; Lemon claimed, sounding as authentic as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1Ffh66d9sik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his idea of Christianity<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ever eager to play the race card, the liberal provocateur, insisted that his critics are racists and homophobes for suggesting that his actions were reprehensible. The <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/01\/29\/five-years-ago-today-joe-biden-spread-the-jussie-smollett-hate-crime-hoax\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jussie Smollett<\/a> of media told TDS-suffering podcast host Jennifer Welch that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/prominent-catholic-bishop-slams-anti-ice-agitators-who-disrupted-church-service-unacceptable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">church leaders<\/a> in particular who have criticized him are &ldquo;entitled, and that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a White supremacy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Lemon just can&rsquo;t understand why he has become the &ldquo;face&rdquo; of the outrage.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I said, &lsquo;How did I become the face of this?&rsquo; And my producer said, &lsquo;Don, you&rsquo;re a gay, Black man in America and you have a platform, and you&rsquo;re the biggest name. Of course, you&rsquo;re going to be the person that they single out, and they&rsquo;re going to make the headline because it plays to their base. And their base is full of racist, bigoted homophobes,&#8217;&rdquo; Lemon <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/don-lemon-claims-some-religious-groups-have-entitlement-after-anti-ice-church-protest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Wow! Desecration, denial, and delusion. Don is a triple threat.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CivilRights?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CivilRights<\/a> is investigating the potential violations of the federal FACE Act by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.  <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AGPamBondi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@AGPamBondi<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uZBBv1iuuH\">https:\/\/t.co\/uZBBv1iuuH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AAGDhillon\/status\/2013003168179724426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 18, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2>Manufactured Outrage<\/h2>\n<p>Perhaps most audacious is Lemon&rsquo;s assertion that it&rsquo;s the people he and his BLM buddies terrorized who are &ldquo;manufacturing outrage.&rdquo; Manufactured outrage is exactly what Sunday&rsquo;s storming of Cities Church was all about, as is the left&rsquo;s martyr-making of <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/01\/19\/ice-watch-activists-arent-legal-observers-theyre-criminal-obstructors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Renee Good<\/a>, a fellow ICE-hating traveler who was fatally shot after she appears to have struck and injured an ICE agent with her vehicle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As columnist Chris Bray writes, the chaos in Minneapolis is performative &mdash; over and over again. And Lemon is nothing if not a performer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The footage almost always captures people taking footage. Nearly everyone having <em>spontaneous eruptions of righteous rag<\/em>e has their phones out recording their descent into an emotional state of horror and fury. &rsquo;I&rsquo;m going to sob uncontrollably as soon as I hit this &lsquo;record&rsquo; button.&rsquo; Reminder of what this same phenomenon <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/08800653-6f2d-4d29-a9aa-c16a1c426e9f?j=eyJ1IjoiazY0aTEifQ.satm_hK_k8vRSDWSBIE8CVwg4ptQQeonCGvCDHbjQxs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">looked like in 2020<\/a>, with a screen being recorded on a screen&hellip;&rdquo;, Bray recently wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/p\/the-fall-of-soygon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">column<\/a> on his Substack, <em>Tell Me How This Ends<\/em>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How it should end is with Don Lemon and his <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >church-terrorizing friends facing charges<\/a> on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/103rd-congress\/senate-bill\/636\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FACE Act<\/a> (It&rsquo;s not just to protect abortion factories), enhanced under the <a href=\"https:\/\/constitutioncenter.org\/the-constitution\/historic-document-library\/detail\/ku-klux-klan-act-of-1871-april-20-1871-an-act-to-enforce-the-provisions-of-the-fourteenth-amendment-to-the-constitution-of-the-united-states-and-for-other-purposes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ku Klux Klan Act<\/a> for their assaults on the civil liberties of the members of Cities Church.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, doing so would keep Lemon in the news &mdash; which is exactly where the has-been, attention whore wants to be.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-knew-100-percent-he-was-fighting-for-the-little-guy-former-top-trump-economic-adviser\/\" title=\"Trump Knew \u2018100 Percent\u2019 He Was \u2018Fighting for the Little Guy\u2019: Former Top Trump Economic Adviser\">award-winning investigative reporter<\/a> and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don Lemon gains attention after church protest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":2544730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-12.49.43-AM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[50623,36966,38118,36546,32132],"class_list":["post-2544729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cnn-2","tag-don-lemon","tag-legal-controversy","tag-media-controversy","tag-opinion-piece"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-20-at-12.49.43-AM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2544729"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2544734,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544729\/revisions\/2544734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2544730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}