DOJ About to Drop the Hammer on Don Lemon and Anti-ICE Agitators Who Stormed Minneapolis Church

Original article here

Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, said Monday that “the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down” on the anti-ICE agitators—including former CNN host Don Lemon—who stormed a Minneapolis church and harassed Sunday worshippers.

The agitators, led by local Black Lives Matter activist Nekima Armstrong, entered Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, chanting long discredited BLM slogans like ‘hands up, don’t shoot’, and attempting to shame churchgoers over their pastor’s alleged position as the acting ICE field office director.

Lemon was on the scene to livestream the enfolding chaos, telling his viewers at a staging point earlier that he would soon be joining “resistance protesters” on “an operation.”

“I can’t tell you exactly what they’re doing, but it’s called Operation Pull Up,” he said, adding that Armstrong’s modus operandi is to “surprise people, catch them off guard and hold them to account.”

Watching families flee out a back door of the church, Lemon declared that making people feel uncomfortable “is what protesting is all about.”

The U.S. Department of Justice immediately launched a FACE Act investigation into the incursion.

“What happened here was a shameful exercise of virtue signaling, disruption, fear and terror,” Dhillon told Newsmax, adding that online videos show “children being ushered out the back by their terrorized mothers.”

“This is illegal,” she pointed out.

After the Justice Department launched its investigation, Lemon took to social media to defend himself, claiming he had no idea what the anti-ICE agitators were about to do.

“I have no affiliation to that organization. I didn’t even know they were going to this church until we followed them there,” he said defensively. “We were there chronicling protests. Once the protests started in the church, we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church, and members of the organization.”

He added, “that’s it. It’s called journalism.”

Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson the Justice Department was pursuing various charges for the crimes that occurred during the demonstration, including violation of the FACE Act, a federal law passed in 1994 and signed by then-President Bill Clinton to protect access to abortion clinics and places of religious worship.

The FACE Act prohibits the use of force, threats of force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, or interfere with individuals seeking or providing abortion services or exercising their First Amendment right to religious freedom.

Dhillon said “Klan Act conspiracy charges” were also being considered, explaining that the Biden administration would often tack those charges onto FACE Act charges against pro-life demonstrators to enhance their sentences.

The

makes it illegal to threaten, hurt, or intimidate people to prevent them from exercising their civil rights.

“The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes,” Dhillon explained, adding that the law “makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens.”

She noted that by adding KKK Act charges to the criminal complaint, the charges would automatically go from a misdemeanor to a felony.

“Whenever people get together to conspire to violate protected civil rights, the Klan Act can be used,” she explained.

Dhillon said the Department would also be looking into who funded the operation, and what other crimes might have occurred.

She pointed out that many of the “very foolish” agitators had self-identified and posted their accomplices online, including Don Lemon, who appeared to know ahead of time exactly what the anti-ICE agitators were planning to do.

“He went into the facility and then he began committing, quote, ‘journalism’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy—It isn’t,” Dhillon told Johnson.

She added that videos indicated that Lemon was “close to these folks” and further investigation will produce more evidence regarding his foreknowledge of the anti-ICE church incursion.

Dhillon stated that it was important to get this message across to other anti-ICE militants across the country, so this doesn’t happen again.

“Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time.”

“This heinous act that occurred in Minnesota yesterday is receiving the highest level of attention from The Justice Dept,” Dhillon posted on X, adding that she was working with Attorney General Pam Bondi on the matter “around the clock, because no right in our Constitution is more sacred than the freedom to assemble & pray to God.”

Dhillon pointed out in a subsequent post that state prosecutors in Minnesota “could have made arrests yesterday” but the DOJ has to “first go before a federal judge to obtain an arrest warrant.”

She promised that the DOJ is pursuing federal charges in this case.