Journalist Don Lemon, talks to the media after a hearing at the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Don Lemon said about a dozen federal agents came to his Los Angeles hotel to arrest him last week. This went down despite his lawyers telling authorities he would turn himself in to face federal civil rights charges. The charges stem from an anti-ICE protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.
Lemon told ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that sending the agents was a waste of resources. Kimmel introduced Lemon, his first guest of the night, by saying he “was arrested for committing journalism.” During their chat, the host said law enforcement wouldn’t have had to dispatch agents to follow him if he had been allowed to surrender to authorities.
“I was walking up to the room and I pressed the elevator button, and then all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled and and people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” Don Lemon shared Monday on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
Lemon said he asked the agents who they were, and they identified themselves. He asked to see a warrant and was told they didn’t have it. The agents then summoned an FBI agent to come from outside to show Lemon the warrant on a cellphone.
Lemon said he asked the arresting officers if he could make a phone call. He said he was told no and that he could talk to his attorney the next day. He tried to use Siri on his Apple Watch to call his husband and his attorney, but neither picked up.
A diamond bracelet he was wearing kept getting caught on his handcuffs, which hurt. The agents then told Lemon they would take it off. Lemon said he asked if the agent would mind taking it up to Lemon’s husband in his hotel room and they agreed to do that.
“And that’s how my husband found out. Otherwise, no one would have known where I was,” Lemon said.
Lemon said he was kept in a holding room at the federal courthouse from midnight until 1 p.m. the next day.
Don Lemon has said he isn’t affiliated with the group that disrupted the church service. He told Kimmel he wasn’t a protester.
“I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening. I was following that one group around, and so that’s what I did. I reported on them,” Lemon said.
Don Lemon’s attorney has said his client plans to plead not guilty. He told reporters, “I will not be silenced,” after he was released in response to a judge’s orders. Meanwhile, the FBI’s Minneapolis office said it would be inappropriate to comment because the case has reached “the adjudication phase.”
A grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon, another independent journalist, Georgia Fort, and others. the charges are for conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers during the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where an ICE official is a pastor.
Like Don Lemon, agents pulled up deep to arrest Georgia Fort, who shared footage of the moment on social media. Fort, in an interview with MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow on Monday, said nearly two dozen agents came to her house.
The situation, Georgia said, was “extremely traumatic” for her family.She has three daughters, and initially thought the youngest two aged seven and eight slept through most of it.
“I did find out at some point my eight-year-old woke up but she was so terrified, she just laid in her bed and cried,” Fort said. “Now what we’re seeing from them, they’re afraid to be alone. They’re having issues going through their normal routines. And so we’re just we’re trying to recover from this.”
Georgia Fort said there’s been a strategic attack on the press for some time, but the arrests of her and Lemon takes things to a new level. “I really want American people to understand, attacking the press is not simply attacking journalists,” she said. “It’s attacking the public’s right to know.”
Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy and David Bauder contributed to this report via AP Newsroom.
