Newly released documents from February reveal that a U.S. magistrate judge denied five search warrant requests from the Trump administration related to the Cities Church FACE Act prosecution, which most famously led to charges against former CNN reporter Don Lemon.
The issue involved a group of protesters who disrupted a gathering at a St. Paul church with a pastor who was working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at a time when federal agents had effectively taken over the city of Minneapolis. The administration used the FACE Act, which is typically used to protect access to abortion clinics, but has a little-used provision also protecting church services.
Judge John Docherty, however, took issue with all of the information being sought by Homeland Security Special Agent Timothy Gerber — and in particular, a warrant for the subscribers of Lemon's YouTube account.
"While the indictment states that Mr. Lemon has an internet-based show called 'The Don Lemon Show,' [there] is nothing in the indictment about Mr. Lemon having a YouTube channel," wrote Docherty. "But the main difficulty with this particular search warrant application, and the reason it is concerning, is for another reason."
Specifically, the judge said, "Set out in Attachment B are the items that Google is to turn over to the government and the items that the government may seize. The warrant seeks 'subscriber information in any form kept,' including the names of subscribers, the mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, and email addresses of subscribers, the telephone numbers of subscribers, and the Internet Protocol addresses from which the 'Don Lemon Show' was accessed, among other information."
"There is no attempt made to explain why the compilation by the government of a comprehensive index of subscribers to 'The Don Lemon Show' is evidence that a crime was committed," wrote Docherty.
The government maintains that Lemon took part in intimidating churchgoers based on their beliefs. Lemon has insisted he did nothing of the sort and was at the protest to cover it as a journalist.