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The Trump administration said Friday that it had ordered the arrest of a prominent journalist over coverage of immigration protests in Minneapolis, as the president branded a nurse shot dead by federal agents in the city an “agitator.”
The arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon came as President Donald Trump walked back his conciliatory tone following public outrage over the killings of Alex Pretti, a veterans’ hospital nurse, and another American citizen in Minneapolis
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Lemon and several other people had been arrested “at my direction” on unspecified federal charges in connection with what she called a “coordinated attack” on the Cities Church in St. Paul, the twin city of Minneapolis.
Lemon, now an independent journalist, was among the reporters who covered a protest against the immigration crackdown at the church where an official with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is a pastor.
Lemon’s lawyer said he was taken into custody in Los Angeles overnight, adding that his work covering the protest “was no different to what he has always done.”
A magistrate judge in Minnesota had declined last week to charge Lemon.
Trump took to Truth Social meanwhile to describe Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse gunned down on Saturday, as an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.”
“Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer,” Trump wrote.
Footage shared online this week reportedly shows Pretti in a scuffle with federal agents 11 days before he was shot dead.
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AFP could not immediately verify the footage, in which a man said to be Pretti is seen kicking and breaking the taillight of the agents’ car before they emerge and tackle him to the ground.
