After a federal magistrate judge refused to sign off on criminal charges against Don Lemon, the Department of Justice is back at it again. And this time, it s with someone who could do it: Harmeet Dillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ.
00:03:15.360Well, we are going to do it because that's what is required for justice here.
00:03:20.740And from Sunday when I first saw the video that Don Lemon himself put out about his conduct that day,
00:03:27.920it was clear to me that we had the predicates for pursuing FACE Act and conspiracy.
00:03:33.800We did our homework, sent prosecutors there to the ground, took affidavits, took evidence.
00:03:39.220They buttressed the case that we could witness from Lemon's own testimony and statements and admissions against interest in his own videos.
00:03:48.080And we have aggressively and very rapidly sought legal process.
00:03:52.520Now, I will say it's been a little frustrating because for 48 hours between the time that we sought these arrest warrants
00:03:59.720and the time that we were able to make arrests and say what the judge did in refusing to sign off on lemons,
00:04:26.000He's not out of the woods just because this one magistrate judge decided not to sign off on the warrant.
00:04:31.960This judge, this magistrate judge we now know, is married to somebody who works for Keith Ellison, the attorney general of the state of Minnesota.
00:04:44.800The judge's name is Douglas Mikko, M-I-C-K-O, magistrate judge who refused to sign the warrant.
00:04:50.640And we found out that his wife, Caitlin Mikko, who works for Keith Ellison in the AG's office, recently reposted first a happy holidays photo of her with the judge.
00:05:04.860So that's why we know they're married.
00:05:06.960But separately on LinkedIn, Harmeet, this woman, okay, again, she's married to the judge who denied the warrant.
00:05:12.840She recently loved this message from the solicitor general in AG Ellison's office.
00:05:17.660Quote, I'm proud to help AG Ellison and the mayors protect the equal sovereignty of Minnesota and the safety of our residents by suing ICE, Homeland Security today.
00:05:28.260So she's liking the lawsuit against ICE.
00:05:37.240Should he have recused himself from this?
00:05:38.640So let me add, there's a couple of additional elements, which is Keith Ellison ignorantly went out there and said that the FACE Act doesn't apply to attacks on houses of worship, which, as you know, Megan, it obviously does.
00:06:07.120And it's a conflict of interest, in my opinion.
00:06:09.500And, you know, he absolutely has fallen short of the standards here.
00:06:15.880And there's more that I can say about the magistrate.
00:06:19.140I don't even want to say judge because magistrate is an inferior officer, not an Article III judge.
00:06:26.220The back and forth with us is something else.
00:06:29.940But this magistrate clearly exhibited bias, I think, in his rulings, and they're very disappointing.
00:06:39.680And so there are more chapters to come in this dispute, for sure.
00:06:44.860So normally you could bring it before a grand jury, right, to get an indictment.
00:06:49.640Can you go, Harmeet, to a different magistrate?
00:06:52.400I don't want to telegraph exactly what we're going to do next in court, but there are next moves in court in multiple directions, up and sideways and otherwise.
00:07:01.000But you have to understand that this was a holiday weekend.
00:07:03.840And, unfortunately, grand juries don't run every day of the week.
00:07:07.380I know there's a lot of ignorant commentary out there on social media about this.
00:07:21.880But you know that the attorney general herself was there on the ground and managing this process with my principal deputy, a brilliant young lawyer.
00:07:31.540And so, you know, we are not giving up the fight here at all.
00:07:35.580And, in fact, we only identified rapidly, I think, a handful of people who were in this mob.
00:07:42.180I intend to go after every single one of them.
00:07:44.380None of the people who invaded this house of God and harassed and frightened children and families is going to go unpunished.
00:08:47.020So eventually we will expect to get all of these people.
00:08:50.660And, you know, then we're going to have more questions about how this was organized, who organized it, who funded it, and what else is being done by this group of people invading churches.
00:09:03.100And why we move so quickly, Megan, is as a person of faith, it just outrages me to see this happening.
00:09:10.720And I didn't want churchgoers to feel that if they went to church in Minneapolis, St. Paul, this coming Sunday or the synagogue or any house of worship, that they might face the same kind of mob harassment.
00:09:26.760It's just not, it's off limits in America.
00:10:05.380And everyone who is in the food chain of helping us get the information needed didn't necessarily cooperate quickly, but we got it done very quickly.
00:10:13.280There was a report yesterday on the one arrest of Chantel Allen, she's the one who's on the school board, that she had allegedly rented out three separate hotel rooms and that the hotel manager helped to get her down to the lobby to be arrested.
00:10:29.040I'm not going to comment on the exact circumstances, but the privilege that some of these folks exhibit can get tiresome to the general public.
00:10:40.020And hotels don't want fugitives in their premises for obvious reasons.
00:11:04.720You know how I know it's not about justice?
00:11:06.340Because I have the best attorney in the country, I believe, to deal with this, who takes on this administration without fear at all.
00:11:18.980And this attorney has worked with some of the worst accused criminals in history.
00:11:27.120And even those people, just like Donald Trump, who is a 34-time convicted felon, are always allowed usually to self-report.
00:11:36.000In these situations, why you see the activists in Minneapolis or Minnesota, why you see a perp walk, which they were supposed to get rid of that, right, because they said they were unconstitutional.
00:11:55.360If they had come here to do that, they wouldn't let me self-report.
00:11:58.800And so when I asked counsel and people, well, why is this happening?
00:12:06.860And one person who I respect the most, this doesn't come from my counsel, who I really respect said, because they're giving you the N-word treatment.
00:13:15.720It's so unusual for a magistrate to not sign off on there being probable cause and issue the warrant.
00:13:41.980I mean, every lawyer, every lawyer that we've talked to, and we have a lot of them in our MK Media Network, former prosecutors, former defense and current defense attorneys saying this is unheard of virtually.
00:13:53.400I mean, unless like there's absolutely no case.
00:13:55.600And there is, there is obviously probable cause for both FACE Act and the Conspiracy Against Rights charges for Lemon.
00:14:03.980So, I mean, was it nakedly partisan, Harmeet?
00:14:06.940I mean, I know you're limited somewhat in what you want to say, but like, was it obviously a partisan thing?
00:14:11.580Well, let me state with regard to the FACE Act.
00:14:13.400First of all, like Attorney General Keith Ellison, many lawyers and even apparently now magistrates and judges are entirely ignorant of the second half of the FACE Act, which is protecting houses of worship.
00:14:26.380Why is that because all they've ever heard of is Obama and Biden, DOJ, going after pro-life protesters, using that law, praying outside abortion clinics and abuse of the FACE Act.
00:15:02.980It is one of our oldest, perhaps the oldest civil rights law that I am charged with administering here at the United States Department of Justice.
00:15:10.920And it dates back to an era where local law enforcement and state law enforcement was weaponized against people of color in this country after the emancipation of the slaves.
00:15:24.720And so, you know, it is, this is exactly the purpose for which it was intended to be used.
00:15:29.420Conspiracy to violate somebody else's civil rights.
00:15:32.440Is there any more fundamental civil right, Megan, than the right to pray to God peacefully in a house of worship?
00:15:38.380It is the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
00:15:41.200It is the basis on which this country was founded.
00:15:44.260And so I look forward to getting convictions under both of these statutes eventually against all the people charged.
00:15:53.420Let me read you what Matt Murphy said to us.
00:15:56.060He's part of our MK True Crime Network, and he's a lifetime prosecutor out in Orange County.
00:16:22.340The guy filmed himself in the parking lot.
00:16:24.180And he said, these are, well, sanctimonious lefty blank holes.
00:16:27.400I think you would agree with all of that.
00:16:31.220Do we know, because you point out, like, the magistrate is not, like, a nominated judge by a sitting president.
00:16:39.680So was it a Democrat who put, who chose this magistrate judge and put him on the bench?
00:16:44.780So let me explain to your audience how magistrate judges work.
00:16:48.140I've gone before many of them, and often we lawyers who are looking for a speedy resolution of our cases, we stipulate to magistrates actually trying cases where there's a bench trial situation.
00:16:59.080So I respect the role of the magistrate judge.
00:17:01.260But the magistrate judge is an employee of the federal court.
00:19:28.500And then there are other moves we can make.
00:19:30.260We are literally not even a week away from this invasion of this church occurring.
00:19:36.520These arrests are rapid within the scope of how the DOJ normally operates, I can assure you.
00:19:42.500And so, you know, there will be more to come in this case.
00:19:46.300I hope to identify, with the help of the public, video evidence and other data that we have at our disposal, which the FBI is working on, every single person who came uninvited into that house of God and get them.
00:19:59.940How soon do you think we'll see more arrests?
00:20:01.860Arrest warrants have to be signed off, you know, by this process.
00:20:08.060So I, it hopefully will be days, but I can't give any promises.
00:20:13.420Yep, we're somewhat beholden to the judiciary.
00:20:19.060Can I ask you about some elements on the FACE Act?
00:20:21.180So to prove a violation under the FACE Act, you have to prove that by force, threats, or physical obstruction, they've interfered with religious observance.
00:20:30.540And Dave Ehrenberg, who we love, he's a former Palm Beach County attorney, he's a Democrat, he says he's a centrist, but he said on the show the other day in a debate with Mike Davis that he doesn't think you guys are going to pass the force, threats, or physical obstruction piece of the act.
00:20:47.320Because he's looked at the case law and said, in his interpretation, typically force or physical obstruction would suggest preventing exit from the church.
00:20:59.500Like in the abortion clinic cases, it was people blocking women from trying to get into the clinic.
00:21:05.600And I took issue with that, Harmeet, because there was a famous case just over the past couple of years under the Biden DOJ where they went after abortion.
00:21:15.620There was actually two people who went after one of these pregnancy counseling centers with negative spray paint on the outside of it.
00:21:23.620And it said something like, this isn't exact, but it was something to the effect of either you'll support abortion or you're going to get it.
00:21:31.080You know, it was a threatening kind of spray paint.
00:21:34.000But there was no blocking of anything.
00:21:35.440But it was a threat, so it might have been considered, quote, threatening.
00:21:38.760You tell me whether those people were physically obstructing or using force, I don't know.
00:21:43.800But in that church, the behavior was threatening, Harmeet.
00:21:48.000I just don't think there's any argument that they were not threatening the people, saying, hands up, don't shoot.
00:22:28.040So, first of all, we've had the FACE Act since 1994.
00:22:30.740There have been many prosecutions under the FACE Act, almost all of them against pro-life protesters or silent objectors.
00:22:38.440And you can't just look at the words of the statute.
00:22:41.120You have to look at how the courts have interpreted it and what convictions have been had and upheld on appeal.
00:22:46.040And so, for example, there have been numerous convictions by the Biden DOJ, I think I can count of three cases off the top of my head, where people were convicted for silently praying outside an abortion clinic, not chaining themselves to the doors or blocking the entrance, and certainly not going inside and creating a ruckus and shouting at people on an operating table.
00:23:13.040The case you mentioned is Oropesa v. United States, which I personally argued and defended the conviction of in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals just three or four months ago.
00:23:22.620And I went into court and defended the Klan Act application to this particular fact pattern.
00:23:27.860And some people who are charged with FACE Act violations in that case, some of the conspirators, pled guilty.
00:23:59.640They had to, you know, the workers there were in fear.
00:24:02.220Some people called out sick because they were afraid.
00:24:04.200And this organization was called Jane's Revenge.
00:24:07.540It's kind of a, you know, I would call it quasi-terrorist organization designed to terrorize people of faith.
00:24:16.900And this was in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
00:24:21.580So when you look at the case law, people have been convicted under the FACE Act for much, much less than exactly what happened here.
00:24:29.740But let's look at the words of the protesters themselves.
00:24:32.040First of all, William Kelly shouted racial, racially charged language within this church and also outside the church.
00:24:40.240He made it clear that the white and Christian nature of these people was part of the motivation of harassing them.
00:24:47.220Don Lemon himself stated before and after that the purpose of this so-called protest obstruction was to put people in fear and make them uncomfortable and make them traumatize them.
00:25:02.960And then we have photographs of children crying and their mothers hugging them and moms ushering children out the back and strong Christian men standing up to defend their families.
00:25:14.880That is in response to putting them in fear.
00:25:33.160I have career prosecutors, nonpartisan prosecutors working on this case.
00:25:37.340And by the time we gathered this video evidence and interviewed some witnesses on Sunday and Monday, we had no question that this is a violation of both the FACE Act and for the organizers and people who planned it, the Klan Act as well.
00:25:52.380Abby Lowell, who we've discussed, is representing Lemon, put out a statement that reads as follows in part.
00:25:58.080The magistrate's reported actions denying the probable cause existed for the warrant confirmed the nature of Don's First Amendment protected work.
00:26:07.840It was no different than what he has done for more than 30 years reporting and covering newsworthy events.
00:26:12.840What's your response to that, Harmeet, the First Amendment argument being made by Abby Lowell and Lemon?
00:26:17.140So let me first of all, let me step back for a second.
00:26:19.900I am a First Amendment activist and lawyer for more than three decades.
00:26:24.660I have litigated numerous First Amendment cases, including to the United States Supreme Court, and won many on behalf of journalists.
00:26:31.720I usually represent the journalists in my private practice.
00:28:53.480I have represented Project Veritas and the journalists at Project Veritas who did not publish Ashley Biden's diary.
00:29:01.300And yet they had to expend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending the First Amendment in the Southern District of New York where the weaponized DOJ went after.
00:29:09.960And Harmeet, we had James O'Keefe on our show after that happened.
00:29:13.480And they raided James O'Keefe's home at five in the morning with The New York Times.
00:29:19.420Oh, suddenly just somehow aware of it simultaneously.
00:29:26.140And there was there was as far as I know, there's been no FBI raid at Don Lemon's home yet.
00:29:30.460But so this is this is recent history where Biden's DOJ went after a journalist for not even publishing a story, not actually doing what Don Lemon did, which was join the mob committing the crime.
00:29:42.280Not just James, but two other journalists employed by Project Veritas were all subjected to this organized theater.
00:29:52.120That was the flimsiest case I ever saw.
00:29:54.680It's really, truly outrageous abuse of power by the prior administration.
00:30:00.100And yet they had no problem getting search warrants.
00:30:03.660And they had no problem then forcing and dragging Project Veritas and its lawyers.
00:30:09.040I was one of the lawyers, full disclosure, through the mud and trying to pierce and invade attorney-client privilege as well as the First Amendment.
00:30:19.900Let me give you a state court example.
00:30:22.200Kamala Harris did the one and only prosecution of any journalist in California history under California's wiretapping statute because David Daleiden, again, my client, was an undercover journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation's lucrative fetal part trafficking business.
00:30:42.780He audiotaped and videotaped them in public places, in restaurants, in bars, in hotel lobbies, clearly not covered by the wiretapping statute.
00:30:52.880The process is the punishment on the left.
00:30:54.920So you will notice that although we had choreographed arrests here, did it carefully so that no one got hurt, we didn't have Fox News or News Nation or Newsmax over there or any other journalism outlet with cameras videotaping that.
00:38:22.400And now, in connection with this hearing coming at us, the defense motion has been released.
00:38:28.460And that's why you've probably seen all these text messages or headlines in the news about text messages that Blake Lively sent between Blake and Taylor Swift, between Blake and Matt Damon and his wife, and Ben Affleck and others.
00:38:40.800And we're going to talk about all the text messages.
00:39:05.460I'll get to this when the lawyers join me next hour.
00:39:07.440But, like, in the law, we have the concept of the eggshell plaintiff.
00:39:11.360And it's like there are certain plaintiffs who are, like, the tiniest little thing, and suddenly they have severe and permanent, you know, cervical neck injuries.
00:39:26.300Like, the stuff that she was whining about in these text messages as evidence of Justin Baldoni's just disgusting sexual harassment is so pathetic.
00:39:38.580Either she is the thinnest skinned person alive or she was just trying to screw him over, you know, or she just decided that she wanted this movie to be hers.
00:39:49.380And in her effort to bully him out, really set him up with her power by going to actresses with less power than she had and so on and trying to gin up a little campaign against him.
00:40:01.880And, you know, do you remember when this case first started getting going?
00:46:35.420Just, okay, I guess there's no one to take him because we are arresting this dad and can't find another parent willing to claim him.
00:46:45.080Fox News reports that they did not know whether anyone else was home at the time, that they had the child knock on the door to see if anyone else, family of his, was home and that there wasn't.
00:46:55.540So we don't know exactly how that went down, but we do believe now that the mother was inside and that she wouldn't come out and that she wouldn't claim the child.
00:47:05.380And the ICE agents were now in a position of saying, will you take your kid?
00:47:35.680This is how we got in trouble under the Biden years where he was allowing like some random adults to take custody of the children coming across the border with their families so that he could say that there wasn't separation, but there was separation.
00:47:48.720And some kids had been getting sent with their families across the border thinking that they'd have a better shot at just being left here, that we wouldn't bother them.
00:47:57.180And then we were putting them with child molesters.
00:47:59.480This is a story we covered here on the MK show.
00:48:01.260So they cannot just give the child, even to a school board member.
00:48:40.760Now the father has a lawyer who's saying, no, no, no, no, no.
00:48:43.340He was an asylum seeker, not an illegal.
00:48:46.060And technically, if you're here validly claiming asylum, or not validly, they'll determine whether it's valid in a court.
00:48:50.820But if you get to a point of entry, you have to assert that you're here seeking asylum at a valid point of entry in the United States.
00:48:59.060And then they give you certain, like, paperwork and so on.
00:49:01.620And then you can be here for a certain amount of time until you get your asylum hearing.
00:49:04.860Usually, if it gets, and then it gets denied, you usually have to get out, but they don't leave.
00:49:09.180Well, under Joe Biden, he issued this new edict, you may remember, right after he took office, saying, now I have something called the CBP1 app.
00:49:18.380And you can fill out an application under this app if you're an illegal.
00:49:22.700And you can cross the border, and you can say that you're seeking asylum.
00:49:26.560And for two years, we won't deport you.
00:49:28.760We'll treat you as an asylum seeker, and we'll adjudicate your claim.
00:49:33.400And then technically, you wouldn't be here illegally.
00:49:35.880Well, that was in 2023, ultimately, when he issued that.
00:49:39.560It would have expired by its terms in 2025.
00:49:41.840But when Trump took office in 2024, well, he won in 2024, took office in January 2025, he canceled that order.
00:49:50.700Trump wiped the whole thing out, saying, nope, we're not doing that anymore.
00:49:55.460Enjoy your previous claims of asylum, but they're done.
00:49:58.200It led to an ongoing class action lawsuit, seeking nationwide class action, saying you can't terminate early.
00:50:05.480By the way, it was about to terminate anyway.
00:50:07.120It only went for two years, started in 23.
00:50:09.480And they sought a class certification, these immigrants, saying you can't just terminate it overnight.
00:50:14.500And they recently moved for summary judgment in their favor, which was denied.
00:50:19.860So they did not get summary judgment in their favor.
00:50:23.500So under either the terms of that CBP asylum given by Joe Biden, which would have expired in two years, and certainly by what President Trump did, which was to yank it for everybody as soon as he got into office, these guys are not valid asylum seekers.
00:50:43.840We will give you a plane ticket for you and your family to go back to your country of origin, and we'll also give you $2,600.
00:50:49.500And on top of that, if you go through this app to depart and take this deal, we will treat you as though you've never done anything unlawful or you've never even tried to get here the next time you properly attempt.
00:51:01.180All of that has been offered to this man and his son.
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00:57:01.780Respect people's rights to do their job without being assaulted.
00:57:04.560If you follow that basic principle, the Trump administration is going to do everything that we can to protect your rights.
00:57:09.760But if you go after somebody, if you assault somebody, if you make a nine-year-old girl cry because you walked into a church and harassed her,
00:57:17.220we're going to go after you with every single tool.
00:57:22.760And that's what we heard, of course, from Harmeet Dillon, too, that they made sure these charges were brought before this Sunday
00:57:27.880so that people could go to service in peace and not have to worry about being harassed.
00:57:33.760So good for him, and he made that unambiguous, and I think everybody there has gotten the message that you try this shit, you're going to have handcuffs on you.
00:57:41.980And I don't give two shits what Don Lemon thinks.
00:57:44.700Good for them for slapping the cuffs on and doing a perp walk.
00:58:31.460By the way, it's not going well for Lizzie, who's looking for a date desperately.
00:58:35.920Very, very sad update in the Lizzie case, which we'll get to at some point.
00:58:39.460But let me bring you here to this lady who decided to make use of the anti-ice version of the battle hymn of the Republic for the listening audience.
00:58:48.380Because she has an entire basket on her face.
00:58:53.120There's a whole basket on her face here.
00:58:55.800Instead of a basket case, she's a basket face.
01:16:18.860There are 10,000 more examples, literally. I mean, there might actually be 10,000. There are
01:16:25.960definitely dozens, dozens. She tells it the same way every time. How your hair would fare in a
01:16:31.960blizzard. All I could think about when I watched it was the amazing Parker Posey and the absurd
01:16:37.460characters that she plays from Best in Show, which was spectacular. And then most recently,
01:16:42.480her appearance with that fake Southern accent in The White Lotus. We queued up a little bit
01:16:46.680of it just so you can see where my mind went. Here it is.
01:16:50.640He flew over the North Pole. But you're not a Buddhist. She's so gentle, but also firm.
01:16:58.180You want to live in Taiwan? Because you need your family. You do. Most people don't have good values.
01:17:08.780You're getting me? Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Like she's giving off Parker Posey
01:17:13.160vibes. How your hair would look in a blizzard. It's like she's having, you know, some bathroom
01:17:20.640issues. Okay. Anyway, she could be the next governor of Minnesota. I feel like she's going to fit in just
01:17:26.080perfectly out there. She's going to replace tampon, possibly. We'll see. We'll see about that.
01:17:31.740Okay. Now I want to get to what's happening in the Baldoni and Lively lawsuit, because there's a lot.
01:17:37.640There are a lot of texts that we got to go through. We're going to do that when we come back with our
01:17:42.400pals from MK True Crime. The Marks are here today. Eiglarsh and Garagos next.
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