JUST IN: DOJ Confirms Charges Against Don Lemon, Liberal Church Rioters Are Incoming

The Justice Department said it plans to charge internet personality and former CNN host Don Lemon after he disrupted a church service in Minnesota alongside anti-ICE rioters.

Harmeet Dhillon, the U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said Monday that Lemon will be charged under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, noting that he has already admitted he knew “exactly what was going to happen inside that facility.”

Dhillon said Lemon’s claim that he was acting as a journalist covering a story will not “shield” him from prosecution.

The statute makes it a federal crime to terrorize, intimidate or harm people who are exercising their civil rights. It was originally enacted to protect newly freed slaves. While the law has often been used in cases involving law enforcement, it can also be applied more broadly, including to bring conspiracy charges.

Dhillon pointed to how the Biden administration used the Klan Act to add conspiracy charges in cases brought under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994.

“We will pursue charges in this case,” she told Benny Johnson. “In other cases, the Biden DOJ used the Klan Act conspiracy charges tacked on to the FACE act in the case of protests outside abortion clinics, to bring much longer sentences. So there are a number of tools available to us.”

BREAKING: DOJ Announces Intention to Charge Don Lemon under the Ku Klux Klan Act.

The KKK Act makes it illegal to threaten, hurt, or intimidate people to prevent them from exercising their God-given rights.

HARMEET DHILLON: “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal… pic.twitter.com/GWnXAMtWc9

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 19, 2026

She said federal investigators will also examine who funded the event, whether mail or wire services were used to organize the rioters, and whether anyone crossed state lines, factors that could trigger additional charges.

“The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes… [It’s] a law that makes it illegal to terrorize citizens to violate the civil rights of citizens — to get together and conspire to violate the civil rights,” Dhillon said.

“Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long, long time,” she added.

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