The Department of Justice is moving forward with federal civil rights charges against media personality and former CNN host Don Lemon after he allegedly joined anti-ICE agitators in disrupting a Minnesota church service.
According to Western Journal, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon announced Monday that Lemon will be prosecuted under the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Dhillon stated that Lemon has already admitted he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility, a key element in establishing intent under the statute.
Dhillon emphasized that Lemons attempt to cloak his actions in the mantle of journalism will not place him above the law or beyond accountability. She made clear that Lemons assertion that he was merely a reporter on assignment will not shield him from prosecution or from the full force of federal enforcement.
The Klan Act, enacted after the Civil War to protect newly freed slaves from organized terror, makes it a federal crime to terrorize, intimidate, or harm individuals exercising their civil rights. While the law has often been turned against law enforcement officers in recent years, it can be applied to any group or individual engaged in a conspiracy to deprive Americans of their constitutional freedoms.
Dhillon also drew attention to how the Biden administration has previously wielded this powerful statute in a highly selective manner. She noted that the Klan Act has been used to stack conspiracy charges on top of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 in cases involving protests outside abortion facilities, often resulting in dramatically harsher sentences for pro-life demonstrators.
We will pursue charges in this case, she told commentator Benny Johnson, underscoring that the same tools used so aggressively against pro-life activists can and will be deployed here. In other cases, the Biden DOJ used the Klan Act conspiracy charges tacked on to the FACE act in the case of protests outside abortion clinics, to bring much longer sentences. So there are a number of tools available to us.
Beyond Lemons individual liability, Dhillon indicated that federal authorities will scrutinize the broader network behind the church disruption. She said investigators will examine who financed the operation, whether mail or wire services were used to coordinate the rioters, and whether any participants crossed state lines, all of which could trigger additional federal counts.
Dhillon stressed the enduring significance of the statute, calling it a central pillar of federal civil rights enforcement. She added, The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes [Its] a law that makes it illegal to terrorize citizens to violate the civil rights of citizens to get together and conspire to violate the civil rights.
Her message to professional agitators and radical protest networks was unmistakable and stern. 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, long time, Dhillon concluded, signaling that weaponizing protests to trample the rights of worshipers will face a robust federal response.
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