Donald LeMon may be in deep poo over disrupting church services

The Justice Department under the new administration isn't messing around when it comes to defending houses of worship from disruption — and former CNN host Don Lemon has found himself squarely in the crosshairs.

A top DOJ official is signaling that federal charges could be coming for those who stormed a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday, including Lemon for his embedded role with the anti-ICE protesters.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon laid it out plainly in an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday, warning of serious consequences and pointing to statutes that could bring lengthy prison time.

“I see various crimes that have occurred,” she told Johnson. “Exactly what they are I’m not going to flag, but the FACE Act has been mentioned as one of the predicates there. In other cases, the Biden DOJ used the Klan Act conspiracy charges tacked onto the FACE Act in the case of protests outside abortion clinics to bring much longer sentences.”

Dhillon didn't hold back when turning to Lemon's involvement, dismissing any notion that "committing journalism" provides immunity.

“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility, and then he began ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy, it isn’t,” she said.

The potential charges could invoke the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act — which protects access to religious services just as it does abortion facilities — and the Ku Klux Klan Act (the Enforcement Act of 1871), which targets conspiracies to deprive people of their civil rights, including religious liberty. Violations can carry more than a decade behind bars and steep fines.

As Benny Johnson highlighted in his post:

BREAKING: DOJ Announces Intention to Charge Don Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act.The KKK Act makes it illegal to threaten, hurt, or intimidate people to prevent them from exercising their God-given rights.

HARMEET DHILLON: “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal… pic.twitter.com/GWnXAMtWc9— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2026

Dhillon noted that these same tools were once deployed against peaceful pro-life demonstrators outside clinics, a reminder that civil-rights enforcement cuts both ways, depending on who's in charge.

"The FACE Act is just the start," she continued. "Like I said, you have material support for disruptive activities, you have conspiracy to violate civil rights, you have potentially the use of other instrumentalities to commit crimes."

The incident stemmed from protesters targeting the Cities Church because one pastor reportedly works with a local ICE field office. Demonstrators entered the sanctuary, shouted at worshippers, and disrupted the service.

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The DOJ, Dhillon said, is still putting its "ducks in a row," but the message is unmistakable. "Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they're going to be able to get away with this. 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," she added.

This is the Trump-era DOJ making clear: Houses of worship aren't protest zones, and claiming press credentials doesn't grant a free pass to join the fray. So sorry, Donny boy. Deal with it.

This story is still developing.

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