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Don Lemon Taken into Custody; Doug Kelley is Interviewed about the Lemon Arrest; Mo Ivory is Interviewed about the FBI Seizing Fulton County Ballots. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 30, 2026 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[08:33:03]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news is this, former CNN anchor Don Lemon, an independent journalist now, taken into custody, apparently behind bars overnight. This was in connection to his presence, he says covering, that protest that was inside a church in Minnesota last week. A magistrate judge had initially refused to allow federal officials to arrest Don Lemon, take him into custody. But clearly, they have found another judge to sign off on it. And in a statement overnight, his attorney, Abbe Lowell, says Don is in federal custody and they will fight these charges.

Now, after Don was at that church filming the protests there, after there were many people saying that he should be arrested for his presence there, and the magistrate judge initially said, no, no, no, that can't happen, he sat down and spoke with my friend Alisyn Camerota, who is a special events anchor now at Scripps News. Alisyn, of course, great CNN anchor at "NEW DAY" and other shows here.

Alisyn is with us now.

Alisyn, always great to speak with you.

You spoke extensively with Don about what was going on. He basically told you he saw this coming. He saw this arrest coming. Tell us about that.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, FORMER CNN ANCHOR (via telephone): So, John, I talked to him exactly a week ago. We sat down for more than an hour. And he felt this was not over. He felt that even though this magistrate judge, federal magistrate judge, had basically thrown the DOJ's proposal out of court, that Don should be charged with anything or arrested because he felt he's protected by the First Amendment, Don felt that it wasn't over because he had seen what happens with some other perceived Trump administration adversaries, such as James Comey. I mean you could go down the list.

[08:35:00]

So, Don had reason to believe that he was still being a little harassed, I guess, for lack of a better word, that DOJ -- that there were still things buzzing in the air. And so, you know, this morning we wake up to this news. And it's just really concerning on so many levels.

BERMAN: Alisyn, we were just able to pull a little bit of the sound from the interview you did with Don. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON: You tell me what this administration -- no, no. Look, I -- look, I'm not naive. I think they're probably going to try again and again, as they did with Tish James and Comey and everyone. If one doesn't work, then they try something else and that fails, and they try something else, and then they just don't give up because they, you know, they want to save face. But I don't know what's next. I think -- I think what's next is that I have to be in it for the long haul and to, you know, and just to be strong, as always, and keep calm and carry on.

CAMEROTA: Because this federal magistrate judge said that they didn't have a case, basically. The Department of Justice said that they didn't have a case. I mean, the judge said the Department of Justice didn't have a case.

LEMON: Didn't have a case.

CAMEROTA: But you think that it's not over?

LEMON: No, I think it's not over because it doesn't matter if there's no law to fit, they will try to fit or retrofit something or go around a judge and just do it themselves. And --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And that, Alisyn, is the conversation, just a part of it, you had with Don. People should go listen to it. It is interesting, especially now given that he is in custody.

What did he tell you about what it was that he was doing or covering at this church?

CAMEROTA: So, he said that he was covering a protest. This is at the Saint Paul church. The protesters had reason to believe that the pastor there was an ICE agent. And so Don -- the way Don described it to me is that he was doing what we do. He was covering a protest. He wasn't conspiring with them. He didn't -- he knew that they were going to be protesting something. He wasn't in on their plans, he says, beforehand, which is one of the things that the DOJ has suggested. And then he stayed outside, he says. The protesters went inside the church. And when he realized that the protest was unfolding inside the church, he then went inside.

And so, you know, obviously, our legal experts can describe whether that's trespassing on private property. But either way, that's a misdemeanor. And, you know, the idea that Don Lemon, as a journalist, has now been arrested is just in an entirely different category.

BERMAN: Yes, we're going to talk to a legal expert in just a moment, Alisyn, on that.

But while I have you, just one last question, because you're one of my favorite journalists and one of the great journalists out there. What message do you think that this does send to journalists? Both, you know, at big organizations and now this growing number of independent journalists.

CAMEROTA: I think it's what Don said, which is that the DOJ will try to intimidate journalists and won't stop even after a judge says that they don't have a case. But, Don, as you could hear there in that soundbite with me, was quite resolute. He said, keep calm and carry on. He wasn't feeling cowed. He had eyes wide open that he didn't believe this was over a week ago. And it turns out it wasn't. And so, obviously, I think that that too is a message for journalists, that we have to keep doing our jobs.

BERMAN: And you know what the stakes are.

Alisyn, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for sharing that video, that interview you did with him, which, as I said, turned out to be prescient. Thank you so much. We'll let you get back to work. Thanks, Alisyn.

I do want to bring in Joey Jackson, CNN legal analyst, who is with us now.

And let's just cover the facts of this. Don says he was there covering this protest that happened inside a church. What does the law say about what journalists are allowed to do

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: John, I don't know how clear I could be about this, but I think you know, everyone knows, an eighth grader knows something about the First Amendment. You know, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to do what you need to do.

You know, before getting into the law, just as a person living in this country, we are in such different and bizarre times. This is heartbreaking to see what's happening here. In the event someone's going to be arrested, there should be some scintilla of law which supports and sponsors the arrest or gives probable cause. Understand what happened here, John. Understand the dynamic of going to a judge and asking the judge to evaluate, to determine whether there's criminality. A judge saying, no. You going to an appeals court and appeals denying that, but you're still moving forward. Where are we right now?

And so, if you want to talk about issues relating to law, it starts there.

[08:40:00]

It's our foundational democracy to do what needs to be done. And that entails reporting on things and holding power accountable. Not about power trying to intimidate and otherwise coerce journalists from not doing their job. At the end of the day, this case is going to end up, yes, prediction, right now, the same way that James Comey's case ended up, nowhere, the same way that Letitia James' case ended up, nowhere.

And so, look, if you want to say that somebody physically coerced someone in a church not to engage in that practice, of course. There's protections for that. That's not this.

BERMAN: Because, let me -- let me make clear, because the law is fairly clear about what protesters or demonstrators can do in a church. That may -- very well may be against the law.

JACKSON: Yes.

BERMAN: And that may be clear on that end. But a journalist's presence there covering it, why is that different?

JACKSON: So, John, that's the distinction. And just to be clear, protesters certainly have rights that are very significant, but those rights --

BERMAN: But not necessarily on private property?

JACKSON: Correct. Not necessarily on private property. And not necessarily those that might transgress another person's right to freely worship. That's another right we hold dear. You freely worship whoever you want to. And it's not up to anybody to physically coerce you, intimidate you, harass you, or injure you in doing that. That's not this case. There's a distinction between someone who's protesting and obstructing someone's rights to engage in their religious freedoms than a journalist who's going in.

And, you know, what's particularly alarming about this is we know that Don, right, we know Don, he's no fan of the president. He's a critic of the president. He said some very inflammatory things very recently we know on social media about the president. But so what? That's what we do. And so the legal distinction here from a protester impeding, interfering, physically threatening, et cetera., someone's worship to someone's covering that, it's the moon, the sun, the skies. It's totally different.

BERMAN: It's a different ballgame legally.

JACKSON: Yes, it is. It is.

BERMAN: Listen, I think this discussion is going to go on.

Joey Jackson, I do appreciate you laying out the framework for what's happened here and how unusual --

JACKSON: It's crazy.

BERMAN: Maybe even unprecedented it is.

Appreciate that, Joey, our thanks to you.

Let's go back to Sara in Minneapolis.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thank you, John. A great conversation there with you and Joey.

Joining me now is Doug Kelley. He is a former U.S. assistant attorney in Minnesota. Very well known here and respected here in the state and in this city.

Doug, thank you so much for being here.

I know you did not come on expecting this, but I just want to recap what has just happened. Former colleague, former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested. We are learning that there is another journalist who is an independent journalist, well known here in Minneapolis, who has also been arrested after that -- they were covering people who had protested, first outside and then inside of a church. They entered the church to talk to people, to report on what was going on. And they have now been arrested.

Doug, just to get your thoughts on this, after a judge had already told the DOJ, absolutely not, you will not be allowed to arrest Don Lemon. You cannot -- you do not have a case here. We are now learning that he has been arrested by the DOJ, linked, we believe, to his reporting from a church. What are your thoughts on what is happening here?

DOUG KELLEY, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT ATTORNEY IN MINNESOTA: First of all, Sara, I am not surprised at all. And you should know that the magistrate judge who refused to sign the criminal complaint, his name is Doug Micko. He is very respected in this district. And I happen to see a photograph where -- of the complaint. And he just wrote on the complaint, no probable cause. I'm sure Abbe Lowell will have fun with that.

I'm not surprised because I knew how relentless Trump goes after his enemies and how much Pam Bondi will follow that. I figured that they probably went to the grand jury and submitted an indictment to them because I don't think they'd want to go to other magistrate judges to get -- try another criminal complaint. So, not surprising. And as Joey Jackson said, the law is breaking down here in Minnesota.

SIDNER: Do you see this as a clear move by the Trump administration? Now, we do not have the details of what he's being charged with, but if it is linked to the church, he's been very clear about what he was doing there. As a reporter, he got a tip. He went there. He covered it. He went into the church. He talked to people. All of the people. He talked to the pastor. He talked to protesters. He talked to the people inside the church who said that they were scared. Doing the job of a journalist.

[08:45:03]

Doug, do you think that this is a move by the Trump administration to squash, not the First Amendment, only when it comes to people who is -- who are critical of the government in place right now?

KELLEY: Oh, absolutely. This is a pattern by the president, and he will keep it up. It is -- it's really scary. And it's part of what our chief justice, whose name is -- or, I mean, excuse me, our chief judge in Minnesota has called out ICE for and said they have disrespected the law and have denied or refused to acknowledge many, many federal judge's orders. And he is a very well-respected person. If I were Trump and Pam Bondi, I would be worried about that because he is a very well-known conservative. He was a Scalia clerk. And he wrote a very scathing opinion that said, hey, ICE is not a law unto itself. And they have violated the law in many, many ways.

And as Joey Jackson said, Sara, when things break down, we now have people disappearing off the streets and we don't know where they are. The federal judge has ordered them to bring them back, and they just disregard the order. So, this is a bad situation. Don Lemon is just part of what's going on now to suppress his political -- Trump's political enemies, the media and anybody who would speak out against him.

SIDNER: I want to shift gears here because what I was going to talk to you about is what is happening inside the U.S. attorney's office, where you worked, had a very long and fruitful career. What is happening inside of that office? Because obviously with these charges, you have to have a U.S. attorney take up the prosecution of the case, and you have at least six of the top attorneys there who have resigned over the way in which the DOJ is acting and trying to force them to act. What are you learning about what's happening inside of the U.S. attorney's office now?

KELLEY: Well, the office is swamped, Sara, with two kinds of cases. First of all, if you are arrested and taken out to the Whipple Federal Detention Center, the only thing criminal defense lawyers can do is file habeas corpus petitions. Since December, "The Minneapolis Star Tribune" has written since September, 380 of those cases have been filed. That's the equivalent of eight years in a normal situation. So, you have those cases.

Then you also have, I am told, the ICE agents want to bring many, many cases against protesters. And, in fact, with one of the factors in the six prosecutors who resigned was, they wanted -- that somebody in the U.S. attorney's office wanted to start a satellite office and have people just go out there to process the complaints against protesters.

So -- and, meanwhile, they are not answering many, many of the habeas corpus petitions. So, you can kind of tell here what's going on because if you don't -- if you don't respond to the habeas corpus petitions, people spend 30 days in the slammer. And so, they're spending time not trying to figure out whether those were good arrests or detentions, and they're spending their time on the protests. That tells it all, I think.

SIDNER: Doug Kelley, thank you so much for your insight into how things work here. You worked in the U.S. attorney's office for many years, and you said, and I'm quoting you, the law is breaking down here with the arrest of Don Lemon and another local journalist.

We have much more breaking news ahead. We're going to go on a quick break.

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BERMAN: We're going to get back to the breaking news in just a moment. The remarkable breaking news. Don Lemon arrested for covering a protest at a church in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago.

In the meantime, in new remarks about the FBI's search of the Fulton County Elections Office, FBI Director Kash Patel said a judge found probable cause and signed off on a warrant. Fulton County in Georgia has long been at the center of the president's claims that the 2020 election was stolen. It was not. Patel said it will take time for the FBI to get through the hundreds of boxes of ballots they retrieved. He also slammed county officials, who warned they can no longer guarantee the ballots are safe and secure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: We have facilities that store evidence. We have facilities that maintain the chain of custody. And for anybody to hint that this FBI or this Department of Justice is mishandling evidence is just flat out political buffoonery. We will maintain the chain of custody. We will secure it like we always do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now is Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory.

Commissioner, thanks so much for being with us.

Kash Patel said there's no reason to worry about the security and safety of the ballots now in federal custody. Is that convincing to you?

MO IVORY, COMMISSIONER, FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA: Absolutely not. I don't think that's convincing to any American that has watched what has been going on since President Trump became president. We found documents in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago. We found documents all over the place. I don't have any confidence at all that we, in Fulton County, can be sure that those 700 ballots that we have been safely securing for six years, since the 2020 election, will be safe in the hands of the federal government.

BERMAN: He said, Kash Patel, the FBI director, said questioning the security of the ballots is political buffoonery. What do you think about that?

IVORY: I mean, again, where's the buffoonery? The buffoonery is that there even was a raid in the first place. The fact that we are still talking about an election that happened six years ago is ridiculous.

[08:55:01]

And that's the buffoonery. And I don't think any logical person, whatever party you are in, can see -- not see this for what it is. It is an attack on the elections in 2026. We are clear about that. This is just a strategy to cause confusion and chaos, which is what this president's entire agenda is. So, that's what the buffoonery is all about.

BERMAN: The FBI director and the president both noted that a judge, a magistrate judge, did sign off on the search and the seizure. So, how should we interpret that?

IVORY: I mean the -- most of the people that are involved in this entire case have been appointed by Pam Bondi, are somehow related to the president's administration. So, it's no surprise that it was not hard to secure this warrant to go in. There are two cases in -- right now, one in state court and one federal -- in federal court that are just about these documents. The state court case was due to be heard on February 9th, where it was very likely that these documents were going to be allowed to be reviewed by the state election board. They could not wait. They also would have had to pay for the copies of these documents, which would have been hundreds of thousands of dollars, which they did not want to do.

So instead, they went the criminal route, and they secured the original documents. Every American should be worried about what is happening in our country.

BERMAN: What legal recourse do you have?

IVORY: Yes. So, Fulton County has been, since the raid -- I was there on the day of the raid inside of our elections hub, and we were assembling a legal team in order to respond to this. You will see a filing today that is taking legal action against this, you know, this ridiculous game that the president is playing.

So, I don't want to speak too much into the detail. I'm not the county attorney. But our county attorney has been working with legal counsel, and we will be filing something today.

BERMAN: Commissioner Mo Ivory from Fulton County in Georgia, thank you so much for being with us this morning. A lot of news.

We're going to have much more on our breaking news. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon taken into custody in connection with a protest that he covered inside a Minneapolis church. Much more on this and what we're learning just ahead.

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