First Amendment

Jacob Sullum | 2.4.2026 12:01 AM

Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, two journalists who covered a protest that disrupted services at a St. Paul church on January 18, were arrested last week on federal charges punishable by up to a decade in prison. While the protest itself entailed trespassing coupled with disorderly conduct, the attempt to treat reporting on the event as a federal felony looks like a thinly veiled assault on freedom of the press.

Opponents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown in Minnesota targeted Cities Church because one of its pastors, David Easterwood, directs enforcement and removal operations at ICE's field office in St. Paul. Was that a good reason to interrupt a service at his church and self-righteously harangue the congregants, to the point that many of them fled?

No, it was not. Even if Easterwood had been there, the demonstration would have been misguided, misdirected, obnoxious, morally objectionable, and plainly illegal, especially after the protesters were asked to leave and refused to do........

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