Don Lemon Could Face ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ Charges Over Involvement In Minnesota Church Protest

A top Justice Department official says former CNN host Don Lemon is on her target list to face federal charges for his involvement in the anti-ICE protest that targeted a Church service on Sunday. 

Assistant Attorney for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said multiple crimes were committed during the protest and warned that those involved could be facing lengthy prison sentences. She also suggested that former CNN host Don Lemon could face charges for his involvement. 

While Dhillon did not specify which charges would be brought, she pointed to possible violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. 

“I see various crimes that have occurred,” she told podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday. “Exactly what they are I’m not going to flag, but the FACE Act has been mentioned as one of the predicates there. In other cases, the Biden DOJ used the Klan Act conspiracy charges tacked onto the FACE Act in the case of protests outside abortion clinics to bring much longer sentences.”

She also suggested that Lemon, who was embedded with the protesters under the guise of an independent journalist, could face criminal charges from his role. 

“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility. He went into the facility, and then he began ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part of a criminal conspiracy, it isn’t,” she said. 

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

Both statutes were previously used by the Biden administration to go after peaceful pro-life protesters who demonstrated outside abortion facilities. While the FACE Act guarantees entry to abortion facilities, it can also be used to bring charges against those who intentionally interfere with people attempting to exercise their religious liberty at a place of worship. The KKK Act makes it a crime to conspire to suppress a person’s civil rights and can be punished with more than a decade in prison and hefty fines. 

“The FACE Act is just the start. 
Like I said, you have material support for disruptive activities, you have conspiracy to violate civil rights, you have potentially the use of other instrumentalities to commit crimes,” Dhillon said. 

Dhillon said the Justice Department is still gathering facts and getting its “ducks in a row” before filing charges. 

“Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they’re going to be able to get away with this. 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,” she added. 

The church was targeted because one of the pastors on staff reportedly works for a local ICE field office. Protesters entered the sanctuary and screamed at worshipers, disrupting the service.