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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I am just shocked that something that I've been doing for the last 30 years was deemed as something that we should not do. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon finds himself back in the news again after a member of the church that he and several protesters stormed filed her own lawsuit against them, alleging the event caused emotional distress.
Lemon is already up against federal face act charges from the DOJ. In this episode, we talk to Kristen Wagner, CEO, President and Chief Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, about the different legal avenues at play in the Lemon case. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe, and this is a LegalWire edition of Morning Wire. You know, sheets don't usually fail all at once.
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Chapter 2: What led to Don Lemon's involvement in the church protest?
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So for those who haven't been tracking these cases as closely as maybe we have, can you quickly catch us up and explain what has happened recently? Sure. Well, in the wake of high political tensions involving illegal immigration and ICE and right after the death of Renee Goode, There were a number of protests that took place in Minnesota, and one of them included in a church.
Essentially what happened was the Minnesota Black Lives Matter group began to plan a protest and to disrupt a church service by storming the church during the service in St. Paul. And City's Church, which was interrupted, one of their pastors actually is bivocational and has a job also working for the local field office at ICE, which is why they selected that church.
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Chapter 3: What are the legal implications of the FACE Act in this case?
Right. I think something else to think about it that probably made it even more noteworthy was who joined that storming of the church. And that was Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor.
He helped, it appears, with the videos both before, during, and after by not only recording what they were doing, but as he said in his own words, doing reconnaissance related to the planning of that storming of the church and disruption. Yeah, maybe an admission that he would want to take back on camera at this point. I would sure think so.
If I was his lawyer, I would tell him he definitely did it the wrong way. One of the things that he claimed with the pastor, as an example, on video was that he had a First Amendment right to be there. That is certainly not true. And again, the statements about him doing reconnaissance, essentially helping to
plan that storming of the church service as well as then being in there and engaging, it appears, according to some allegations, even in physical obstruction of some of the congregants being able to ingress and egress. So is there evidence that these protesters actually got between children and their parents?
The Department of Justice under the Trump administration has filed about 39 different indictments. And in those indictments, it does indicate that children were unable to get access to their parents, that they were afraid for their safety, and rightly so, and that those parents were not able to go retrieve those children.
There are many videos of this online on what happened, and I think it would scare any parent that might have had, for example, a child in a Sunday school classroom or a nursery when this was coming in with the chanting, with the yelling, and again, with even Don Lemon's actions on video where he is interrogating the pastor who's simply saying to him, look, we're about the love of Jesus.
And he just keeps repeating that and saying, I need to go help my people. This is unacceptable. It's shameful. I have to take care of my flock, my family. There's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. We're here to worship. We're here to worship Jesus because that's the hope of these cities. That's the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.
I want to be very respectful. Please don't push me. I think most of us journalists haven't, you know, interrupted a religious gathering and shoved a microphone in a pastor's face. Does the First Amendment actually apply in this scenario? And why is the federal government now involved?
Well, aside from what actually happened to the church, what is also deeply concerning is that a former CNN anchor could botch the First Amendment so badly. Just because you have a microphone in your hand doesn't mean that you have special First Amendment free speech rights. And that's certainly true in this instance. The First Amendment applies against the government.
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