A magistrate judge rejected federal prosecutors’ bid to charge journalist Don Lemon related to the church protest, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.
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Lemon was among those on Sunday who entered the church in St. Paul, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor. Lemon has said he has no affiliation to the organization that organized the protest and was there chronicling as a journalist.
“Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon said in a video posted on social media. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
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It wasn’t immediately clear what the Justice Department would do after the magistrate judge’s rejection. But authorities could gather more facts and return to a magistrate judge to again seek a criminal complaint or they could seek an indictment against Lemon before a grand jury.
CNN, which fired Lemon in 2023, first reported the judge’s decision.
