1 hour ago
2
A federal appeals court rejected a bid by the Justice Department to force the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and four others over the weekend after a lower court judge refused to sign off on the warrants to take them into custody.
The three-judge panel, made up of Obama appointee Jane Kelly and Trump appointees Steven Graz and Jonathan Kobes, rejected the request by the Trump administration to bring in Lemon over the Jan. 18 demonstration inside Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn.
In a brief concurring statement, however, Graz said that prosecutors had “clearly establish[ed] probable cause for all five arrest warrants … [but] the government has failed to establish that it has no other adequate means of obtaining the requested relief.”
A federal appeals court rejected a bid by the Justice Department to force the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and four others over the weekend after a lower court judge refused to sign off on the warrants to take them into custody. @TheDonLemonShow/YouTubeThe DOJ had initially sought to charge eight people, including Lemon, in connection with the demonstration, but US Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko only signed off on charges against three prospective defendants and directed the feds to seek a grand jury indictment of the remainder.
Instead, prosecutors asked Chief US District Judge Patrick Schiltz to review the evidence and order the arrests by 2 p.m. local time Friday.
In a furious letter to Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Steven Colloton, Schiltz described the feds’ request as “unherd of in our district or, as best I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit. 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.”
The DOJ had initially sought to charge eight people, including Lemon, in connection with the demonstration. Don Lemon / YouTube“The reason why this never happens,” Schiltz added,” is likely that, if the government does not like the magistrate judge’s decision, it can either improve the affidavit and present it again to the same magistrate judge or it can present its case to a grand jury and seek an indictment.”
Schiltz added that he had planned to discuss the feds’ move with his colleagues on Friday, but their meeting was postponed to Tuesday due to “security concerns” caused by the presence of Vice President JD Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi in Minneapolis.
English (US)