Independent journalist arrested, charged over Minnesota protest coverage

Independent journalist Georgia Fort was arrested by federal agents at her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early hours of Jan. 30, 2026, after a grand jury indicted her on charges connected to her reporting on a protest that disrupted a church service in St. Paul almost two weeks prior.

Demonstrations in the Twin Cities area have been mounting since the beginning of January, following the expansion of an immigration enforcement crackdown, known as Operation Metro Surge, and federal officers’ fatal shooting of two Minneapolis residents — Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

In a video report Fort posted to social media, protest organizers said the church was targeted because one of the pastors is allegedly the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s St. Paul Field Office.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced the following day that her office would seek charges against everyone present at the protest, NBC News reported. While multiple journalists covered the demonstration, Dhillon focused most publicly on independent journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.

“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility,” Dhillon said in a podcast interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson. “He went into the facility, and then he began — quote, unquote — ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t.”

Lemon told NBC in an email that he stands by his reporting, adding that “it’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there.”

A federal magistrate judge refused to issue charges against Lemon and others, CBS News reported Jan. 22. The Justice Department appealed the magistrate’s decision, but in a Jan. 23 ruling, a federal appellate court declined to order the judge to sign arrest warrants for Lemon and his producer, according to MS NOW.

A grand jury impaneled Jan. 29 handed down indictments for both Lemon and Fort, The New York Times and CBS News reported. Lemon was arrested that evening in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the upcoming Grammy Awards, according to a statement from his attorney Abbe Lowell.

Fort was arrested the next morning, according to a livestream she posted while federal agents stood outside her door. “They’re saying that they were able to go before a grand jury sometime, I guess, in the last 24 hours, and that they have a warrant for my arrest,” Fort said.

“This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media,” Fort continued. “I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press because now federal agents are at my door, arresting me.”

Leita Walker, an attorney representing Fort, told The Minnesota Star Tribune that Fort was arrested by agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration “for reasons I don’t understand.” Fort was then taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, the site of much of the judicial and protest activity around the immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media that the journalists’ arrests and those of two others were done at her direction. In a video posted a couple of hours later, Bondi said: “Make no mistake: Under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely. And, if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.”

According to the Times, both journalists face the same charges as the church protesters — conspiring to deprive rights and interfering with someone’s religious freedom in a house of worship.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker was not immediately able to confirm whether Fort has been released from federal custody. According to the Star Tribune, she is expected to appear in federal court in Minneapolis on the afternoon of Jan. 30.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement that the arrests were “deeply troubling.”

“In Minnesota, we do not treat journalists like criminals for doing their jobs. No one should be arrested merely for holding a camera, asking hard questions, or telling the public what we have a right to know,” Ellison wrote. “When the federal government arrests reporters for documenting what is happening in our communities, it violates our rights, undermines our trust, and chills the transparency our democracy needs.”

Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project, condemned the arrests as “naked attacks on freedom of the press.”

“The unmistakable message is that journalists must tread cautiously because the government is looking for any way to target them,” said Seth Stern, FPF’s chief of advocacy. “The answer to this outrageous attack is not fear or self-censorship. It’s an even stronger commitment to journalism, the truth, and the First Amendment.”