Last year, Democrats largely stood by Virginia Attorney General candidate Jay Jones, who wished death on the children of his political opponent. Now, they’re carrying water for anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement agitators who invaded a church service and traumatized children.
Make no mistake: When agitators invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Jan. 18, they weren’t engaged in peaceful protest. They were committing an atrocity.
Agitators stood up and burst in during the middle of service, chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”
According to the Justice Department’s charging document, the agitators blocked the walkways, so terrified parishioners could not escape. They blocked the staircase to Sunday School, so parents could not get to their children.
They screamed in the faces of crying children. One agitator allegedly told a child, “Do you know your parents are Nazis, they’re going to burn in hell?”
At least one father told investigators that his children were traumatized. One of them said to him, “Daddy, I thought you were going to die.”
Agitators targeted Cities Church because they claim one of its pastors also led ICE’s office in St. Paul, as if this connection justified terrorizing innocents and depriving their fellow Americans of their right to worship God in their own church building.
The Justice Department has charged some of the agitators with two major criminal violations: conspiracy against rights under the Ku Klux Klan Act and a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, which also protects access to churches. These agitators allegedly prevented their fellow Americans from exercising their rights to practice their religion, a federal crime.
Yet the agitators might have engaged in activity that could constitute state or local crimes, such as trespassing, false imprisonment, and even kidnapping.
Are these the people Democrats really want to be defending?
Democrats Carry Water for Church Invaders
While some Democrats—like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz—issued halfhearted statements that they do not support the invasion of a church, others stood up for the church invaders, demanding their release.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the arrests of three ringleaders a “gross abuse of power,” and called for the immediate release of Nekima Armstrong—who admitted to leading the church invasion.
The NAACP also demanded Armstrong’s release, claiming she had been peacefully protesting and that “the only reason the FBI and [the Department of Homeland Security] arrested them is that they didn’t like what they had to say.”
On Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., posted a photo of herself with Armstrong and others, claiming that they were “lawful protesters” and condemning the “brutal treatment of nonviolent protesters.”
Carrying Water for Don Lemon
More Democrats condemned the arrests of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort, who had claimed they entered the church merely to cover the agitation as journalists.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Trump administration “is behaving no differently from the police states and authoritarian regimes across history—they’ve arrested a journalist for the crime of doing his job.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., condemned their arrests as “a disgraceful affront to the First Amendment and a corrupt weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
“There is zero basis to arrest Don Lemon, and he should be freed immediately,” Jeffries added. He said Lemon was a “law-abiding” journalist “reporting on DHS brutality in Minnesota.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., suggested that this arrest echoes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attacks on journalists.
“Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were taken into custody by federal agents for doing exactly what journalists are supposed to do: report the truth,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, a candidate for U.S. Senate, wrote in a Friday press release. “This is censorship by an authoritarian government.”
Reps. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y.; Katherine Clark, D-Mass.; Shontel Brown, D-Ohio; Ami Bera, D-Calif.; and others shared similar sentiments.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., condemned Trump for “arresting journalists doing their jobs.” Omar condemned Lemon’s arrest as a “clear violation of the Constitution.”
“Arresting a journalist is a blatant attempt to intimidate,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., wrote on X. “Don Lemon has been on the ground in Minnesota like hundreds of others doing the vital work of covering Trump’s lawlessness and chaos.”
Here’s the thing, Senator Booker: Don Lemon wasn’t “covering Trump’s lawlessness and chaos.” He was “covering” the horrific invasion of a church service, and it certainly seems to me that he was abetting it.
Renee Carlson, who represents Cities Church as general counsel for True North Counsel, said it well:
The First Amendment does not allow premeditated plots or coordinated actions to violate the sanctity of a sanctuary, disrupt worship, and intimidate small children. There is no “press pass” to invade a sanctuary or to conspire to interrupt religious services.
Lemon’s job as a journalist does not give him carte blanche to engage in trespassing.
At the very least, it could be argued that Lemon joined an orchestrated effort to invade a church service, disrupt the service, and prevent people from exercising their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. He is innocent until proven guilty, but it sure seems to me like he violated the FACE Act.
By downplaying the church invasion as a “protest,” and Lemon’s role as mere reporting, Democrats are minimizing an atrocity.
Shame on every Democrat for minimizing the horrific church invasion and carrying water for the invaders. Do you think they would ever let it rest if conservative agitators had invaded a mosque in the middle of prayers?
