The double standard around “journalism” just hit a brick wall, and former CNN host Don Lemon is about to find out what real accountability looks like. The Justice Department announced it plans to charge Lemon after his role in disrupting a church service in Minnesota alongside anti ICE rioters, a move that shatters the media fantasy that a camera somehow grants immunity from the law.
The warning came directly from Harmeet Dhillon, who said Lemon will be charged under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Yes, that Klan Act. Dhillon noted that Lemon has already admitted he knew “exactly what was going to happen inside that facility” before entering the church. That admission alone torpedoes his claim that he was just an innocent observer.
Lemon has insisted he was acting as a journalist, but Dhillon made it clear that excuse will not save him. “That will not shield him,” she said flatly. And she is right. The First Amendment does not protect participating in a mob that storms a house of worship and intimidates people who are peacefully exercising their civil rights.
The Klan Act was originally passed to protect newly freed slaves from organized terror and intimidation. Over time, it has been used in a range of civil rights cases, including those involving law enforcement and organized conspiracies. Dhillon pointed out that the Biden Justice Department itself used the same statute to stack conspiracy charges on protesters outside abortion clinics, adding years to potential sentences. Apparently, the law is only controversial when it is applied to the left.
“We will pursue charges in this case,” Dhillon said in an interview with Benny Johnson. She added that federal investigators are now digging deeper, examining who funded the protest, how it was organized, whether mail or wire services were used, and whether anyone crossed state lines. Each of those factors opens the door to even more serious federal charges.
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 emphasized that the Klan Act is one of the most important civil rights statutes on the books, making it illegal to conspire to terrorize citizens or interfere with their rights. In this case, the right at issue was religious freedom, something the left claims to defend while trampling it the moment it becomes inconvenient.
Her final warning was unmistakable. “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.” That is not rhetoric. That is a prosecutor laying out the consequences.
For years, Don Lemon lectured Americans about norms, decency, and democracy from behind a studio desk. Now he is learning that those principles apply outside the camera frame too. Storming a church is not activism. Filming it does not make it journalism. And the law does not care how famous you used to be.
As the group was staging for the event, Don recorded himself. He said it was a “secret” and was not publicly announced ahead of time. He said “we” several times, stating the group intentionally added some white people to make it more effective. During the event, he confronted the pastor of the church, stating the pastor was not a true Christian if he died not join the cause.
Immediately afterwards, Don stated the whole purpose was to make “those people uncomfortable” because they are racists and not true Christians like he is. Now he pivots to claim he was only there as a journalist.
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