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Minnesota AG Keith Ellison denies Don Lemon, anti-ICE protesters violated FACE Act as DOJ mulls charges
By Joseph Wulfsohn
Published January 19, 2026
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is rejecting assertions that the anti-ICE protesters who stormed a church in his state over the weekend broke the federal law the Justice Department has cited as having potentially violated.
Top DOJ officials say they are looking into whether the agitators who disrupted services at St. Paul's Cities Church on Sunday violated the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.
The FACE Act makes it a federal crime, with potentially steep fines and jail time, to use or threaten to use force to "injure, intimidate, or interfere" with a person seeking reproductive health services, or with a person lawfully trying to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It also prohibits intentional property damage to a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship. The Ku Klux Klan Act makes it a federal crime for individuals to deny citizens their civil rights.
DON LEMON RESPONDS TO TRUMP DOJ'S THREAT, STANDS BY COVERAGE OF ANTI-ICE PROTEST AT MINNESOTA CHURCH
Anti-ICE protesters targeted the Cities Church in Minneapolis on Sunday, shouting down churchgoers in the middle of services. (Facebook/DawokeFarmer2)
Appearing on ex-CNN host Don Lemon's YouTube show, Ellison insisted the FACE Act only pertains to reproductive rights.
"And the FACE Act, by the way, is designed to protect the rights of people seeking reproductive rights... so that people for a religious reason cannot just use religion to break into women's reproductive health centers," Ellison told Lemon.
"How they are stretching either of these laws to apply to people who protested in a church over the behavior of a religious leader is beyond me," Ellison added.
DON LEMON PUT ‘ON NOTICE’ BY DOJ FOR ROLE IN COVERING PROTEST THAT STORMED CHURCH
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison argued the anti-ICE protesters did not violate the FACE Act as the DOJ mulls pressing charges. (Tim Evans/Reuters)
Lemon himself has been swept up in the controversy as he provided embedded reporting from Cities Church documenting the chaos that erupted.
While the liberal host maintained that his actions are protected by the First Amendment as a journalist, Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, suggested Lemon's participation was illegal.
"A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest!" Dhillon told Lemon on X. "It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service."
"You are on notice," she added.
Don Lemon told Fox News Digital that he stands by his reporting. (Don Lemon/YouTube)
"It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there. That framing is telling," Lemon told Fox News Digital in a statement. "What’s even more telling is the barrage of violent threats, along with homophobic and racist slurs, directed at me online by MAGA supporters and amplified by parts of the right-wing press."
"If this much time and energy is going to be spent manufacturing outrage, it would be far better used investigating the tragic death of Renee Nicole Good— the very issue that brought people into the streets in the first place," Lemon continued. "I stand by my reporting.
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