Having pushed the approved government narrative in the anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church, it’s no surprise the WorldNetDaily did the same thing when former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested for his purported role in it. Bob Unruh angrily wrote in a Jan. 30 article:
Don Lemon, the talk show entertainer who failed at his CNN job and was fired, now has been arrested, taken into custody, by federal law enforcement officers over his involvement in an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest that invaded a Minnesota church and disrupted its worship service, threatening children there.
His lawyer, Abbe Lowell, confirmed the events that involved Lemon’s arrest by federal agents while Lemon was at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
The lawyer claimed all of Lemon’s protest activities were protected by the Constitution and that he was doing “important” work when he went with violent protesters into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, and recorded them disrupting the service, intimidating worshipers and actually terrifying children there.
[…]Fox described Lemon’s actions at the church where “left-wing agitators” “stormed” into the church.
Lemon, invading the church also, claimed that “the freedom to protest” is what the First Amendment is about.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has confirmed, “Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP.”
Unruh went on to attack a judge:
Charges had been filed earlier in Minnesota but they were rejected by a judge who since had been documented as having contributed to the leftist political ideologies of the anti-ICE and anti-federal law-enforcement agenda.
[…]WorldNetDaily reported that Patrick J. Schiltz, the Minnesota judge who earlier rejected charges against some protesters including Lemon, “appears in a 2019 list of donors & volunteers for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, an organization that provides free legal advice and representation for illegal immigrants. Judge Schiltz was appointed by President Bush in 2006.”
Unruh did not explore the possibility that the charges were rejected because they had no merit, not because he once supported the idea of “free legal advice and representation for illegal immigrants,” for which WND does explain the purported wrongness of that position.
Joer kovacs followed up in a Feb. 1 article:
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general of the United States, gave ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos a lesson in American law Sunday after the left-leaning broadcaster defended former CNN host Don Lemon for documenting a Minnesota church invasion.
Lemon was arrested Friday after livestreaming the anti-ICE storming of Cities Church in St. Paul during which children were terrified as their parents were called Nazis.
[…]“Now, [Lemon] obviously has a very good lawyer,” Blanche added. “He can raise defenses in court to the extent he wants to, but nobody in this country should feel comfortable storming into a church while it’s ongoing and disrupting that church service and thinking that we’re just going to stand by and let that happen because there is a statute that does not allow that to happen.
“It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a former CNN journalist. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rioter. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re peacefully protesting. You are not allowed to do that.”
Kovacs did not fact-check Blanche.
Unruh then served up a Feb. 13 article:
Don Lemon, now an “independent journalist” after losing his position at CNN, has told a Minnesota judge that he’s innocent of charges of disrupting a church service that he invaded with a film crew and a team of agitators.
The Washington Examiner characterized his confrontation with Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn., in January as him “storming” the congregation.
He was part of a group of agitators that violated the church’s constitutional rights by barging in during the service, haranguing and scolding church members and terrifying children.
[…]He was accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and the Department of Justice accused him and others of interfering with the constitutionally protected right to exercise religious freedom.
Unruh did not explain why he called the protesters “agitators,” which sounds a lot like a pejorative term. He embedded a tweet from Lemon defending himself, but refused to quote from that in the article itself, which further tells us that he has taken the Trump administration’s side here.
Unruh then wrote a Feb. 25 article advancing this biased narrative:
One of the victims of former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s disrupt-a-church-worship service protest stunt now has sued him for damages.
TMZ said it obtained court documents revealing that Ann Doucette, who said she was attending worship at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Jan. 18. when Lemon and anti-Trump rioters broke in and disrupted the service, is seeking damages for emotional distress.
The court case charges Lemon and others “unlawfully interfered” with her ability to “freely exercise her religion in a private place of worship,” a protection provided by the First Amendment.
The report said the violent disrupters, who threatened adults and terrified children by blocking their parents’ access to them and telling the kids their parents were going to hell, apparently was intended to harass the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Unruh served up a hostile defense of Lemon, claiming that “Lemon has claimed his actions in barging into the service, getting in peoples’ faces and interrupting their service was part of his First Amendment right as a reporter.” Lemon was not allowed by Unruh to specifically respond to the lawsuit, though he added that “Social media commenters endorsed the plan.”