Don Lemon Details Arrest To Jimmy Kimmel In First Interview Since He Was Detained

Don Lemon is speaking out about his arrest. On Monday, Feb. 2, the journalist made an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for his first interview since being detained on Jan. 29 after covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota earlier last month. The former CNN host revealed the moment he was apprehended once he returned to his hotel in Los Angeles. He was in the city to cover the Grammys and events leading up to the ceremony. “I got back to the hotel. I walked in – I had my swag bag from the thing, and I was walking up to the room and I pressed the elevator button, and then all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled in and there are people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs. And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ And I said, ‘Who are you?’ And then finally they, like, identified themselves. And I said, ‘If you are who you are, and then where’s the warrant?’ And they didn’t have a warrant.S o they had to wait for – someone from outside – an FBI guy to come in to show me a warrant on a cell phone,” he explained in part. Lemon also disclosed that he retained his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, before his arrest when he began to see Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration members suggesting he could be apprehended, even having his attorney make a customary offer for Lemon to turn himself in. “‘If you are serious about this, then let’s do it the right way. He’s perfectly willing to self-report,’ which means turn yourself in. And so we don’t have to go through this whole rigmarole and never heard back from them,” Lemon claimed. The independent journalist was charged with violating the rights of worshippers. Lemon and his attorney maintain that he entered the church for the sole purpose of covering the demonstration in a purely journalistic capacity.