ST. PAUL — Don Lemon pleaded not guilty in February 2026 to federal civil rights charges stemming from his presence at a January 18 protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lemon was one of 39 people charged in connection with the demonstration at the church, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as pastor.

Lemon, an independent journalist, maintains he was at the church solely to document the protest and not to participate. “Don Lemon insists he was at the Cities Church in St. Paul to chronicle the January 18 protest but was not a participant,” according to court filings.

In February, Lemon and fellow independent journalist Georgia Fort filed a motion seeking transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to indictments against them and seven others. Their attorneys argue the release is warranted due to what they describe as a pattern of misconduct by the U.S. Department of Justice in grand jury operations nationwide.

On May 27, 2026, Lemon’s legal team submitted a filing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis citing recent judicial rebukes of DOJ prosecutors. They noted that “In the past two weeks alone, several courts have chastised Justice Department prosecutors for irregularities in the grand jury process and gone so far as to dismiss indictments for grand jury misconduct.”

The filing referenced two specific cases: on May 21, charges were dismissed against four activists in Chicago after a judge found evidence of grand jury misconduct tied to an immigration-related protest; and on May 15, three federal judges in Wyoming threw out nine felony indictments because of improper comments by an interim U.S. attorney to grand jurors.

Lemon’s attorneys further contended that their client is “entitled to see whether the government allowed the grand jury to serve its role or whether, as elsewhere, the government interfered with the proper function of the grand jury.” They described the case as having a “checkered history of this case” and pointed to multiple instances where federal judges in Minnesota, including the chief federal judge, had previously refused to issue arrest warrants due to lack of probable cause.

Additional scrutiny emerged when a magistrate judge rejected search warrants in February targeting Lemon’s YouTube channel, account, and cellphone data of four co-defendants. The judge ruled the Justice Department failed to establish probable cause. Those sealed records were unsealed on May 26, 2026.