‘Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they’re going to be able to get away with this,’ the DOJ’s Harmeet Dhillon said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) will pursue charges against individuals involved in a Jan. 18 protest inside a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a DOJ official said, adding that former CNN journalist turned YouTuber Don Lemon, who livestreamed the incident, is “on notice.”
Protesters disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, chanting phrases such as “Justice for Renee Good,” following claims that one of the church pastors serves as the acting field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minnesota.
Responding to a post on X quoting Lemon’s comments on the protest, the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, said a house of worship is not a public forum for protest.
Don Lemon defends storming the Minneapolis church today and shutting down the worship service.
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) January 18, 2026
“This is what the First Amendment is about, the freedom to protest,” Lemon told viewers. “I’m sure people here don’t like it, but protests are not comfortable.”
Does that make Don…
“It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!” Dhillon said in a Jan. 18 post on X. “You are on notice!”
During an interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson on Jan. 19, Dhillon said that the DOJ will pursue charges against the protesters and may use provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prohibits individuals from banding together to violate the constitutional rights of other people.
BREAKING: DOJ Announces Intention to Charge Don Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2026
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
Dhillon also mentioned the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act of 1994, which prohibits the use of “force, threat of force, or physical obstruction” against people seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.
“We’re putting the facts together, and this is a very serious matter. Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they’re going to be able to get away with this,” she said.
“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.”
Dhillon specifically mentioned Lemon during the interview.
“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility,” Dhillon said. “He went into the facility, and then he began, quote unquote, ‘committing journalism,’ and as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t.”
In a statement provided to media outlets, Lemon said: “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.”
