Don Lemon Knew Anti-ICE Plan Before Church Disruption

Former CNN host Don Lemon acknowledged that he was present with Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters in the Twin Cities and had awareness of their planned actions before they crashed a Minnesota church during a Sunday service.

A livestreamed video posted on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, one of the protest's organizers, shows a group of people interrupting services at the Cities Church in St. Paul by chanting "ICE out" and "Justice for Renee Good."

Good, 37, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month amid a surge in federal immigration enforcement activities.

The protesters alleged that one of the church's pastors, David Easterwood, also leads the local ICE field office overseeing the operations.

Lemon admitted that he was with the group during a livestream from a parking lot in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

"These are resistance protesters. They're planning an operation," Lemon said.

"We're going to follow them on. I can't tell you exactly what they're doing, but it's called Operation Pull-Up."

He identified a local activist involved in the effort and described the nature of the demonstrations.

"It's Nekima Armstrong," Lemon said.

"She's been doing this since George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and others, where they surprise people, catch them off guard, and hold them to account."

Lemon said the group's plans were intentionally undisclosed ahead of time.

"So that's what we're doing here. And after we do this operation, you'll see it live," he said.

"These operations are surprise operations. Again, I can't tell you where they're going."

During the livestream, Lemon also commented on demonstrators carrying an American flag, describing it as "MAGA-coded."

Shortly afterward, dozens of protesters entered the church.

Lemon can be seen pushing up close to a church leader, holding what appears to be a recording device up close to his face, and attempting to get information.

People who disrupted a Minneapolis church service Sunday will face the "full force" of the Justice Department, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, told Newsmax Monday.

"This is going to get the highest attention from the Department of Justice, because there is no more sacred right in our Constitution than the right to assemble and pray to God, and there are federal laws that protect that right," she said.

Dhillon said it appeared that the protesters broke federal laws.

"And what happened here was a shameful exercise of virtue signaling, disruption, fear, terror," she said.

"You can see children in this video being ushered out the back by their terrorized mothers. And this is illegal."

Following public criticism, Lemon issued statements disputing claims that he had prior knowledge of church disruption.

"I had no affiliations with that organization," he said.

"I didn't even know they were going to this church until we followed them. We were there chronicling protests."

Lemon further described his actions after the demonstration began.

"Once the protest started in the church, we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people who were involved, which included the pastor, members of the church, and members of the organization. That's it," he said.

Dhillon said federal prosecutors were headed to Minneapolis, with FBI agents working with local leaders to investigate and potentially prosecute illegal activity, including Lemon's actions.

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota, where federal authorities have been conducting a massive immigration enforcement operation, two defense officials said Sunday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans, said two infantry battalions of the Army's 11th Airborne Division have been given prepare-to-deploy orders. The unit is based in Alaska and specializes in operating in Arctic conditions.

One official said the troops are standing by to deploy to Minnesota should President Donald Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 19th century law that would allow him to employ active duty troops as law enforcement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.