Can Trump ICE the Press? Prosecuting Journalism in Minneapolis

Randy Furst

Posted February 4, 2026

Kimmel, on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” introduced Don Lemon by announcing he was “arrested for committing journalism.” ABC

WEBSTERS DICTIONARY DEFINES defines fascism as “a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized government control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc.”

We aren’t there yet, but it sure feels like elements of it, especially if you live in Minnesota these days.

One of the latest in a series of atrocities is the federal prosecution of two independent Black journalists, former CNN anchor, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis.

Their crime? Covering a demonstration by anti-ICE activists who disrupted a service at a church in St. Paul, Minn. where there is a minister who is employed by ICE.

“The First Amendment is not optional, and journalism is NOT a crime,” The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), said in a statement, co-signed by other media groups including the NewsGuild, the union that represents journalists. NABJ continued, “A government that responds to scrutiny by targeting the messenger is not protecting the public, it is attempting to intimidate it, and considering recent incidents regarding federal agents, it is attempting to distract it.”

None of the ICE or border control agents who killed activists Rene Good and Daniel Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis have been charged, despite video evidence that would warrant, in my opinion, a murder charge. But the Justice Department engaged in an extraordinary effort to indict Lemon and Ford who have the audacity to cover the news.

Justice Department officials first asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko in Minneapolis to issue warrants for Lemon, Fort and several other protesters. Micko found probable cause to issue warrants for three activists, but insufficient cause to arrest Lemon, Fort and other protesters.

Then Justice officials asked the Minneapolis district’s chief judge, Patrick J. Schiltz, to review Judge Micko’s decision. Schiltz, however, did not mince words:

“It is important to emphasize that the U.S. attorney request is unheard-of in our district, or as best as I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit,” wrote Schiltz. “I have surveyed all of our judges — some of whom have been judges in our district for over 40 years — and no one can remember the government asking a district judge to review a magistrate judge’s denial of an arrest warrant.”

Schiltz noted that three of the individuals who prosecutors wanted to indict, had not committed violence, but were accused of merely “yelling horrible things at members of the church.” Schiltz said there was no evidence that Lemon or Fort had engaged “in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”

Schiltz is not a left leaning judge. When he was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, he had politics so conservative, liberal court observers familiar with his writings expressed alarm.

Schiltz said he would take up the matter of Lemon and Fort at the next meeting of the local district judges, but the Justice Department couldn’t wait. It went straight to the Eighth U.S. District Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative in the country, asking it to to direct a judge in the lower court to sign the complaint and issue arrest warrants for the five suspects. According to the New York Times, the Justice Department said the charges were “urgently needed to protect the public safety from concrete, credible threats of criminal activity this weekend.” A three-judge panel from the Eighth District, rejected the request giving no reason.

Federal prosecutors then took their case to a local grand jury and got an indictment. Grand jurors hear only the prosecutors’ side of the story and it is probable that if they’d gotten a fair briefing, they would have told prosecutors to take a hike, too.

Georgia Fort as she was arrested. Facebook / Georgia Fort

The case against Fort and Lemon is flimsy, as Schiltz noted. Lemon and Fort have since explained in interviews that they did not participate in the disruption, they were only covering it. In the midst of the protest, Lemon can be heard on the video explaining to parishioners that he was only covering the event.

During my days as a reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune, I covered hundreds of demonstrations, some of which were civil disobedience actions. In some cases, I was tipped off ahead of time about sit-ins or other non-violent demonstrations so that I could be on the scene when the actions occurred, rather than scramble to get there, possibly after the protests were over.

Under Trump’s Justice Department formula, I could have been arrested, too.

The Trump administration’s attacks against the media have been escalating. Trump has encouraged violence against journalists. He banned the Associated Press, one of the major news sources in this country, from the pool of journalists covering the White House, because the Associated Press had the audacity to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico, rather than the Gulf of America, Trump’s new laughable designation.

News organizations shut down their offices at the Pentagon after Defense secretary Pete Hegseth told them that in order to remain there, they would have to sign a 21-page form setting restrictions on their reporting, including their interviews with Pentagon sources. Trump has sued major news organizations, including the New York Times and forced concessions out of TV networks. Trump and his pals forced ABC to remove late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, a harsh critic of Trump, from the air, and only a national outcry that threatened the bank balance of the Disney Company, ABC’s owner, led to Kimmel getting his job back.

The Trump administration has been obviously shaken by the mass protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere in response to the invasion by ICE, the murders of Good and Pretti and the cruel pursuit of immigrants that has become a nightmare for people of color in the Twin Cities.

The Trump apparatus is clearly equally disturbed by the extensive, incisive coverage by national news media, and by local news organizations such as the Minnesota Star Tribune, as well as independent journalists like Lemon and Fort.

Hence the attempts at a media crackdown.

It will be important in the days and weeks ahead for the media, and the public in general, to stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Fort and Lemon and be mindful of the classic labor truism, that an injury to one is an injury to all.

If we are to survive this onslaught of our civil rights and civil liberties, now, more than ever, the public needs an independent news media to report what Trump and his minions are up to, and to continue to cover the growing opposition.

Randy Furst retired in 2025 after 52 years as a reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Go to article on the ATC website.