Media giants unite against Trump DOJ’s political prosecution of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort

A reporter follows protesters into a church, keeps the camera rolling, and asks questions. Is that journalism, or participation in a crime?

That distinction is at the center of the federal prosecution of independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 45 news and media organizations are urging a Minnesota judge to dismiss the charges, warning that the Justice Department’s case could make reporters criminally responsible for the people they cover.

The coalition includes The Associated Press, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ProPublica, Dow Jones, Vox Media, MS NOW, the National Press Club, and the NewsGuild-CWA.

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“This is a case of clear government overreach, with the Justice Department attempting to deploy two highly potent civil rights laws to target journalists,” Reporters Committee President Bruce D. Brown said in a statement to The Advocate. “On-the-ground news coverage is essential to the public’s ability to stay informed about important issues, and federal prosecutors cannot be allowed to misuse the law to punish such vital reporting.”

Lemon, who is gay, and Fort were covering a January 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul. Days after ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed queer mother Renee Nicole Good in her car, demonstrators interrupted a worship service after learning that one of the church’s pastors was serving as an acting director of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office.

Lemon livestreamed the protest and interviewed demonstrators, congregants, and a pastor. Fort separately documented the event. Prosecutors allege that they were not simply covering the protest but knowingly joined an effort to interfere with worshippers’ religious rights. Both journalists have pleaded not guilty.

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The Justice Department charged them under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, and a Reconstruction-era law prohibiting conspiracies to deprive people of federally protected rights.

The friend-of-the-court brief, filed Wednesday, argues that both laws require proof that Lemon and Fort specifically intended to stop people from worshipping. Their purpose, the coalition says, was to report the news.

“Reporters and demonstrators may walk through the same door, but they have entirely diverging objectives when they get inside,” the brief says.

The filing warns that the government’s theory could allow prosecutors to treat filming, livestreaming, or interviewing people near a protest as evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Reporters routinely stand close to unlawful conduct precisely because their job is to document it.

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The prosecution has followed an unusual path. As The Advocate previously reported, a federal magistrate initially declined to approve charges against Lemon after finding that prosecutors had not established probable cause. The Justice Department then went to a grand jury.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the arrests occurred “at my direction.” Less than an hour later, the White House celebrated Lemon’s arrest with a meme, before officials had publicly explained the legal basis for the case.

Lemon and Fort filed their own dismissal motions earlier this month, arguing that the prosecution violates the First Amendment and was designed to punish reporting the administration disliked.

The new brief asks U.S. District Judge Laura M. Provinzino to draw a clear line that says being close enough to document a protest does not make a journalist part of it. If that line disappears, the coalition argues, reporters will have to choose between showing the public what happened and protecting themselves from prosecution.