(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A federal appeals court on Friday shielded former CNN anchor–turned–YouTuber Don Lemon and four other individuals for their alleged roles in the anti-ICE riot inside Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected an emergency request by the Department of Justice seeking to overturn a lower court’s refusal to authorize Lemon’s arrest.
The panel, formed by Obama appointee Jane Kelly and Trump appointees Steven Grasz and Jonathan Kobes, ruled that the DOJ had not exhausted other available legal options, including seeking a grand jury indictment.
In a concurring opinion, Grasz said the DOJ had “clearly” established “probable cause for all five arrest warrants,” but faulted the government for failing “to establish that it has no other adequate means of obtaining the requested relief.”
The appeals court decision followed an earlier ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko, who approved arrest warrants for three defendants, Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly, over their involvement in the protest.
Micko declined to authorize arrest warrants for Lemon and eight other individuals tied to the incident.
The DOJ has since hinted that it may no longer seek a federal judge’s signature to arrest Lemon, according to reporting by the New York Post.
The demonstration began on Jan. 18 inside Cities Church after anti-ICE activists claimed that one of the church’s pastors also served as the acting director of an ICE field office in Minnesota.
