Where to Even Start?

The news of former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s arrest in connection with the St. Paul church protest he covered last month was just breaking Friday morning, so I want to circle back on the many new details that have emerged since the news first came out.

Lemon wasn’t the only journalist arrested. Georgia Fort, an independent journalist in Minneapolis who is the vice president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, was arrested at her home Friday. She posted video on Facebook of agents outside her door.
DHS components involved the arrests. In Lemon’s case, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations performed the arrest, NBC News reports, citing the arrest warrant. According to Status, just DHS officers were involved. In Fort’s case, one of the officers she filmed at her door was wearing a patch emblazoned with “DEA.”
DOJ got Lemon indictment after magistrate rejected arrest warrant. The federal indictment of Lemon, Fort and seven protester codefendants was handed down Thursday by a grand jury in Minnesota. They are being charged for the church protest under an abortion-related law: the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994.
The Trump administration villainizes Lemon. Preening over the arrest of Lemon, the Trump administration trafficked in racist tropes about him. The White House itself posted this to X:

Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the DOJ Civil Rights Division, retweeted Mike Davis calling Lemon a “klansman”:

Quote of the Day

The Atlantic’s Quinta Jurecic, on the church protest criminal case:

On the basis of the record available so far, the case against them appears factually weak, legally shoddy, and marred by a baffling series of procedural irregularities that raise serious questions about the Justice Department’s ability to win in court. This prosecution is best understood not as law enforcement but as propaganda, junk intended purely to get attention. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.

Pretti Shooting

Under duress, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reversed course and purported to open a civil rights investigation into the fatal CBP shooting of Alex Pretti, even as he downplayed the significance of the investigation. It remains unclear how thorough the investigation will be and whether it will follow the past practices of the FBI and DOJ Civil Rights Division in use-of-force investigations. Blanche is still refusing to authorize a civil rights investigation of the earlier fatal ICE shooting of Renée Good.
ProPublica has identified the CBP agents who shot Pretti: Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez. Both men were deployed to Operation Metro Surge from south Texas.

Bovino Went on ‘Antisemitic Rant’

CBP commander Gregory Bovino mocked the Orthodox Jewish faith of Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen to other lawyers in Rosen’s office, the NYT reports:

Mr. Bovino, who has been the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, used the term “chosen people” in a mocking way, according to the people with knowledge of the call. He also asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Rosen understood that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take weekends off, the people said. …

During the call, with a handful of prosecutors listening in, Mr. Bovino complained that Mr. Rosen had been unreachable for portions of the weekend because of Shabbat. Mr. Bovino’s remarks followed his complaints about having difficulty reaching Mr. Rosen.

A CBS News source briefed on the incident described Bovino’s alleged remarks as an “antisemitic rant.”

Mass Deportation Watch

In an order Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez declined to end Operation Metro Surge, ruling that Minnesota’s claims that it was being punished or unfairly treated by the Trump administration were insufficient to justify blocking the operation.
In an internal memo last week, ICE expanded the power of federal agents to conduct warrantless arrests of people believed to be undocumented immigrants if they are “likely to escape” before an arrest warrant can be obtained, the NYT reports.
Adrian Conejo Arias and his 5-year-old son Liam were released fr...

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