DOJ’s Arrest of Don Lemon Is Already Going Off the Rails

After a magistrate judge left Attorney General Pam Bondi furious by rejecting a criminal complaint against journalist Don Lemon on January 18, she tried to get her revenge Friday morning. The Department of Justice arrested Lemon in Los Angeles on charges related to his involvement in an ICE protest at a Minnesotan church.

But only a few hours after the fact, the DOJ’s case is falling apart again. MS NOW reported that various DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles have refused to be involved in indicting Lemon.

Authorities continue to be vague about why exactly Lemon is being prosecuted. Bondi wrote on X that Lemon—alongside journalist Georgia Fort and two activists, Trahern Jeen Crews and Jamael Lydell Lundy—had been detained “in connection with [a] coordinated attack” on the St. Paul church, but has not said what the charges are. FBI spokeswoman Lourdes Arocho said Lemon was arrested in Beverly Hills “on a federal warrant issued in another district.”

Lemon covered the church protest as a member of the media, a fact he made quite obvious at the time. He interviewed both protesters and the pastor of the church at the event. An appeals judge said of Lemon and his producer’s conduct: “There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”

Trump’s idea in prosecuting Lemon, perhaps, is not that he’ll be found guilty but that the DOJ can discourage journalists from reporting on things the president doesn’t like by getting them to waste time and money in legal battles.

“They probably don’t have any expectation that this prosecution will stick,” Matthew Seligman, a legal scholar at Stanford Law School, told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. “But they do know they will put Don Lemon through the grinder in the meantime.”

Donald Trump has sued the IRS and the Treasury Department after an agency contractor leaked his tax returns, revealing that he hadn’t paid income tax for a decade—but his lawsuit isn’t likely to stand up to scrutiny.

In court documents filed late Thursday, Trump demanded that the agencies cough up a minimum of $10 billion in damages that would be paid out on the taxpayer’s dime. But there are several issues with the suit itself that raise questions about whether the case can be litigated at all.

First, Trump, in a personal capacity, is suing the IRS and the Treasury for a breach that occurred between May 2019 and September 2020. The problem: The breach occurred during the first Trump administration, when Trump himself was in charge of governing those institutions.

Further still, the bulk of the 27-page complaint appears to have passed the statute of limitations. As Ed Whelan, the former deputy assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, noted online, the first claim in Trump’s complaint must be brought “within two years after the date of discovery” by the offended party.

“Trump knew of the leaks back in 2020. The complaint feebly tries to get around this problem by contending that Trump and his fellow plaintiffs ‘were not able to bring an action against an unknowable, indeterminate defendant to vindicate their rights’ until they were notified of criminal charges against Littlejohn,” Whelan wrote, referring to Charles Littlejohn, the accused contractor.

Littlejohn is currently serving five years in prison for the breach, which he pleaded guilty to in 2023.

“But Littlejohn isn’t the defendant. Treasury and IRS are,” Whelan observed. “And Trump knew back in 2020 that they had allowed the allegedly unlawful leaks. So that claim is time-barred.”

Trump is suing the government in conjunction with his two sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as the Trump Organization.

“Defendants have caused Plaintiffs reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing,” the lawsuit states.

The second claim listed in the lawsuit, which relates to the privacy clause, similarly expired, according to Whelan.

“Seems to me that it wasn’t long ago that conservatives decried vexatious litigants and those who tried to fleece American taxpayers,” Whelan snarked.

The White House is gloating about the arrest of journalist Don Lemon, posting a picture of the former CNN correspondent with the message, “When life gives you lemons” and a chains emoji on X Friday morning.

Boasting about a Black journalist’s arrest with a chains emoji was certainly a choice, evoking racist imagery. Federal agents arrested Lemon Thursday night along with one other Black journalist, Georgia Fort, and two Black activists, Trahern Jeen Crews and Jamael Lydell Lundy. All of them were connected to the anti-ICE protest at a Minneapolis church earlier this month where an ICE agent was serving as pastor. A federal magistrate judge had rejected a criminal complaint against Lemon last week, reportedly enraging Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Three of the protest organizers were also arrested last week, with Bondi posting, “Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP” and the White House sharing a doctored image of one of the organizers, civil rights attorney and Minneapolis activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, supposedly crying as she was arrested.

Arresting protesters and journalists is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. The White House appears to be trying to intimidate anyone who opposes its racist immigration agenda—and even the journalists attempting to document it.

Lindsey Graham is so mad about his phone records being investigated that the South Carolina Republican might shut down the whole dadgum government.

On Thursday night, Graham refused to support a bill agreed upon by both Donald Trump and Senate Democrats that would have solidified 95 percent of the year’s funding for federal agencies.

The remaining five percent consists of the annual budget for the Department of Homeland Security. Following months’ worth of public outcry against the violent actions of ICE, Democrats successfully stripped DHS funding from the larger bill. The new bill allows for a two-week stopgap, giving Democrats time to formulate policy changes before they agree to fund DHS.

Graham is refusing to endorse the bill, not because of his love for DHS, but for a much dumber reason: he’s annoyed at a provision that repeals a law allowing senators to get payouts if they had their phone records seized by former special counsel Jack Smith.

As one of nine Republican lawmakers who had their records seized while Smith investigated Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, Graham would have been able to sue his own employer and potentially collect millions of dollars in taxpayer money under the provision—an idea he appeared to be very excited about. Now, that provision (which was criticized on both sides of the aisle as essentially legalized bribery) is gone, and Graham is reportedly pissed.

Graham will likely cave to his dear leader soon and agree to support the bill. But a government shutdown being caused by one of Trump’s biggest loyalists remains possible—and quite funny to think about.

Doug Burgum had a long resume before Donald Trump tapped him to be the secretary of the interior, but the credential that actually got him the job was apparently his wife, according to the president.

“I saw them riding horses in a video. And I said, ‘Who is that?’ I was talking about her, not him,” Trump said Thursday, seated at the Resolute Desk beside the couple. “They explained it, I said, ‘I’m gonna hire him,’ because anybody that has somebody like you to be with, it’s an amazing tribute.”

The reference to the video made Burgum’s wife, Kathryn Burgum, turn her face into her husband’s chest. Burgum served for eight years as North Dakota’s governor prior to entering Trump’s presidential cabinet.

It’s the second instance in recent weeks in which the president has opined about his colleagues’ wives.

At a GOP retreat on January 6, Trump told a collection of Republican lawmakers that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has a “great wife,” recalling Jennifer Scalise’s affection for her husband after he was attacked by a gunman at a congressional baseball game in 2017.

“Another one who has a great wife, Jacquie, is Tom Emmer, right,” Trump also said at the time, referring to the House majority whip. “Look at you, you have a great wife.”

“She actually liked me at the beginning when we were having little fights,” he continued, recalling that he and Emmer used to regularly disagree. “But Jacquie was saying, ‘I’m telling you, he’s a great guy, he’s good. He’s going to be a great president, blah, blah, blah.’ She was fighting for me and now I love this guy. He’s great. Jacquie’s right about—she was right about both of us, I think, right.”

Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty. 

Mangione, who is on trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had his federal murder charges dismissed on technicality by a federal judge who determined that the shooting was not simultaneously committed during another act of violence. Prosecutors argued that stalking fulfilled that requirement, but the judge disagreed. 

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, a Biden appointee, left in place the stalking charges against Mangione, which would carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Thompson was killed in December 2024 on his way to an investor conference. Mangione, who has a history of severe back pain, noted in an alleged manifesto that the U.S. has the “most expensive healthcare system in the world” but “ranks #42 in life expectancy.”

“United [Healthcare] is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but [h]as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it,” he wrote. The U.S. actually ranks even lower in life expectancy at sixtieth in the world. It is by far the most expensive.

This is a massive blow for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, as they made a spectacle out of seeking the death penalty for Mangione. President Trump even claimed on Fox News that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me.... He shot him right in the middle of the back — instantly dead.... This is a sickness. This really has to be studied and investigated.” All of what Trump is was only alleged, undermining federal prosecutors’ case.

So much posturing and tough talk, only to have their dreams of capital punishment deferred by a technicality. It seems like the DOJ will have to go back to the drawing board.

 Mangione’s attorneys have yet to comment.  

This story has been updated. 

A girl was injured after being hit by a car sporting a large Trump flag on Thursday afternoon. The driver of the vehicle then sped away to screams from a crowd of high school students protesting ICE.

The incident took place outside Fremont High School in Fremont, Nebraska. In video captured by Veronica Sandoval of News Channel Nebraska, a young man is seen entering a red SUV with a Trump flag mounted on the back.

The young man reportedly drove past the protest multiple times before the incident, and student protesters heckled him from the side of his car before he began to drive away once more.

One girl in the crowd ran toward the car from the front, seemingly attempting to stop it. The car did not stop but accelerated slightly, striking the girl and throwing her to the ground. The SUV then stopped for a split second before accelerating again, away from the scene.

News Channel Nebraska reported that police and paramedics responded to the injury, and that the girl was alert and talking with first responders. She was loaded onto an ambulance and taken to a hospital.

It’s the latest in a growing number of protest incidents that have turned violent, with one of the most notable being the shooting and killing of Minnesota poet Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross after Good attempted to drive her car away from him.

Vice President JD Vance’s story about protesters mobbing off-duty ICE and Border Patrol officers in a Minneapolis restaurant is being challenged by local police—and the restaurant manager.

On Sunday, Vance posted a story on X about officers at dinner being doxed (in this case, just having their restaurant choice revealed) before protesters supposedly mobbed them. Vance claimed that the officers were locked inside the restaurant and that local police refused to help them because the authorities had instructed them not to do so. According to Vance, the off-duty officers only got help from their fellow federal agents.

But the manager of the restaurant that night said Vance’s retelling was off. Balli Singh of Darbar India Grill & Bar told Politico that he didn’t even know Vance was talking about his restaurant until the publication contacted him on Thursday and that the real story was very different. He said two men came into the restaurant at 8:30 p.m. on January 19 and asked why so many restaurants were closed or only offering takeout.

Singh said that ICE activity might have been the reason, to which one of the men said, “ICE is not problem.” The officers were in the middle of eating when some people came to the restaurant and told Singh that they suspected ICE was there. Singh said more people started to arrive and gathered near the men’s car. The agents told their server they were being harassed.

“One guy actually told me, ‘Brother, don’t come between this,’” Singh said, referring to one of the agents. “‘We’ll teach them a lesson.’” Only a few minutes later, uniformed officers arrived and the two men left shortly after that.

A Department of Homeland Security report of the incident claimed that one of the protesters who arrived locked the two agents in the restaurant, which Singh said he didn’t see anyone do, “even after in my cameras,” he added.

Local police have also fact-checked Vance’s retelling. “MPD monitored the situation and determined that the federal agents had sufficient resources available to manage the incident,” said Sgt. Garrett Parten, a public information officer for the department, in a statement to Politico about the incident.

“Records indicate the two individuals, and the assisting federal resources were able to leave the area within approximately 15 minutes of the initial 911 call. MPD was later notified that one of their vehicles had been left behind,” Parten said. “MPD monitored the vehicle until the agents were able to return and recover it.”

It seems that DHS agents may have exaggerated the incident to Vance, who took their account at face value and shared it to bolster the Trump administration’s narrative that Minneapolis protesters are aggressors against federal agents who are just trying to enforce immigration law. But it’s obvious to anyone on the ground or seeing video of these agents’ violent actions that the administration is telling lies.

For all his platitudes in the wake of Alex Pretti’s death, Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care about or respect the slain ICU nurse one bit.

In a Truth Social post late Thursday night, the president coldly referred to Pretti as an “agitator” and claimed that his “stock has gone way down.”

“Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump wrote.

Pretti was identified in previously unseen footage Thursday, tying him to another clash with officers 11 days before ICE agents killed him. In the clip, he can be seen shouting, spitting, and kicking a government SUV before several agents tackled him to the ground.

CNN reported Tuesday that an earlier incident between Pretti and ICE agents had left him with a broken rib, though they cited an anonymous source and did not make mention of where or when it allegedly happened.

A representative for the family told the Minnesota Star Tribune Wednesday that they could not confirm if Pretti broke his rib interacting with officers, but recalled that a previous altercation between Pretti and federal agents had torn his clothes and left him in pain with unknown injuries, which the representative noted Pretti did not seek medical treatment for.

“It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control,” Trump continued. “The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

In just a few short weeks, Operation Metro Surge has conducted militarized raids across Minnesota, terrorizing residents and killing two U.S. citizens while carrying out Trump’s immigration agenda.

In defense of the plan, Trump and his allies have challenged the Second Amendment, suggesting that Pretti deserved to die for carrying a gun—despite the fact that he was licensed to do so. They also unsuccessfully tried to smear Pretti and the other victim, award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good, as “domestic terrorists” intent on killing federal officers.

But their deaths—and the ensuing smear campaign—were not received well by the American public. Instead, protests ensued across the country, demanding an immediate end to ICE’s brutality. People of all stripes flooded town halls and Republicans and Democrats alike vented their frustrations, booing at a recent Homeland Security funding package that provided ongoing support for ICE.

Trump initially appeared wary of the boiling tensions. Earlier this week, he tapped border czar Tom Homan to oversee the agency’s presence in Minnesota, replacing Customs and Border Protection chief Greg Bovino in the process. On Thursday, Homan told reporters that he was working on a “drawdown” plan to scale back the number of agents occupying the North Star State.

None of that appeared to matter by that evening, though, when a reporter asked Trump if the administration was finally going to scale back in Minnesota.

“No, no. Not at all,” Trump replied.

Nearly a dozen people close to the Trump administration skipped out on the world premiere of Melania Trump’s new documentary, Melania—even her own son. 

Multiple family members were no-shows at the first lady’s big night at the Kennedy Center Thursday, including Barron Trump, Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Ivanka Trump. Several Trump officials—including Vice President JD Vance—and high-profile conservative influencers who were invited to the premiere also skipped, as a hot mic on the black carpet captured a staff reaction to the absences. 

“Who didn’t show on the red carpet? Kari Lake, she didn’t show. Brett Baier, Kellyanne Conway, Riley Gaines, Benny Johnson … [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi] Noem didn’t show. Bondi didn’t show, weird,” staff said. They also noted that FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi weren’t there, although reports reveal they eventually showed up. 

So who actually showed up to watch this documentary? Nicki Minaj was there, as was Trump lawyer Alina Habba, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and second lady Usha Vance. Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Saudi royalty, and Mike Tyson stopped by a White House premiere of the documentary last weekend. 

The lack of enthusiasm from even the most loyal members of the Trump administration speaks to how useless and inopportune this documentary is. No one cares about Melania, not even the people who get paid to.