‘I Thought This Was America’: Don Lemon Pleads Not…
The legal battle surrounding Don Lemon‘s indictment reached a vital turning level on Friday, as the previous GWN journalist formally entered a plea of not guilty. During the arraignment in St. Paul, Minnesota, Lemon and his legal workforce took a defiant stand against his indictment, arguing that the federal costs are a political attempt to criminalize unbiased journalism. The case stems from a January 18 anti-ICE protest at Cities Church, an event Lemon insists he was attending solely as a reporter to doc.
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According to new legal paperwork obtained by GWN, Lemon’s protection workforce is now demanding access to the confidential transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to Don Lemon’s indictment. They imagine the federal government seemingly misrepresented key points to the jury, notably since two separate judges had beforehand reviewed the case and rejected the DOJ’s initial requests for arrest warrants due to a lack of evidence. Lemon has in contrast the federal authorities’s persistence to the techniques of authoritarian regimes, stating in the filings that the federal government “sold this unconstitutional mess” to the grand jury in a method more constant with Russia, China, or Iran than the United States.
The costs against Lemon and eight co-defendants contain conspiracy to violate constitutional rights and a felony violation of the FACE Act, which protects locations of worship from bodily obstruction. Federal prosecutors allege that Lemon was not just a bystander but a collaborator who helped keep operational secrecy during a coordinated takeover of the church. However, Don Lemon’s indictment has confronted heavy scrutiny from press freedom teams, who argue that holding doorways or interviewing congregants doesn’t represent a bodily obstruction. Outside the courthouse on Friday, dozens of protesters gathered to chant “Protect the press,” echoing Lemon’s sentiment that his 30-year profession has always been anchored in the First Amendment.
The aggressive nature of the arrest has also develop into a focus of the protection, with Lemon revealing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that federal brokers ignored his offer to flip himself in. Instead, practically a dozen brokers intercepted him in a Beverly Hills lodge foyer on January 29, an act Lemon describes as “revenge theater” designed to intimidate the media. While Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko has allowed Lemon to stay free on bond, the federal government still holds his telephone, claiming it stays under a sealed search warrant. As the proceedings transfer ahead, the legal group is watching intently to see if Don Lemon’s indictment will serve as a precedent-setting take a look at of whether or not a journalist’s presence at a protest may be reframed as prison conspiracy.
Furthermore, the seizure of Lemon’s mobile machine has launched a chilling precedent for reporters nationwide, as his legal workforce argues that the federal government’s continued possession of the telephone constitutes a “back-door search” of 30 years’ value of confidential sources and investigative notes. Defense attorneys have expressed grave issues that federal brokers are sifting through unrelated delicate supplies under the guise of the January 18 investigation, successfully turning the prison course of into an act of institutional surveillance. By holding his major software of commerce, the federal government just isn’t just concentrating on one particular person but is signaling to all unbiased journalists that documenting state-related protests carries the risk of complete skilled risk.
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