The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We all understand the First Amendment, but clearly the left does not. Yes, there is freedom of press, but that comes after the religion clause, and if you use your press freedoms to aid and abet the interruption of church services, well, you should be in a heap of trouble — and it appears Don Lemon is, in fact, in a heap of trouble. Now, we can’t get over our skis on this thing, as was so ably explained to us yesterday in these pages, but we can hope. The indictment is damning.
Charges:
COUNT 1 (18 U.S.C. § 241): This is the conspiracy charge, a conspiracy against rights. It’s a felony charge that Don Lemon engaged in a “conspiracy against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship.”
COUNT 2 (18 U.S.C. § 248): This is the so-called FACE Act violation (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, which has a place of worship provision.) It’s a felony charge that Don Lemon did “injure, intimidate, and interfere with exercise of right of religious freedom at place worship.”
The indictment alleges that, for openers, he met the group of 30 or so co-conspirators for a “pre-op” planning session in which the leaders of the group “provided instruction on how the operation would be conducted once they arrived at the church.” Later that morning Don Lemon “began live-streaming” and “explained to his audience” he was with a group about to perform a “resistance” operation but did not mention that it was in church. He kept that part secret. That was a decision on his part, an “overt act” in furtherance of the conspiracy. (Overt Act #5).
As someone on X observed, if it’s okay for Don Lemon to disrupt church services and physically block parishioners trying to exit while trying to “educate” them on immigration law, then it’s okay for a pro-lifer to enter the an abortion clinic and intimidate and harass the pregnant patients there waiting for their abortions while trying to “educate” them on the baby they’re carrying. Of course, we would never do that, but that’s the flip side of this coin.
So let’s be clear where is mind is at. He doesn’t say “they” are about to do this thing. He says “we.” Don Lemon in his own words:
And what did he do?
Here are some highlights from the indictment that are very damning indeed.
He knew what they were going to do, and agreed that “traumatic and uncomfortable” was exactly what these “mostly white” (as he observed later in an interview) parishioners needed to be. I sincerely hope they add a hate crime to this thing. I’m not fond of “hate crime” laws as a general matter, but if we got ‘em, we should use ‘em.
You can’t go into a church and “disrupt” services. That’s flat-out illegal. And he knew from the pre-op meeting that’s exactly what they (“we”) were going to do. And it stopped being him just being a “journalist” when he did the following:
That’s a big no. It’s one thing to stick a microphone in somebody’s face. But to physically obstruct a terrified parishioner? That’s criminal.
As for Count 2, I’ll just let the indictment speak for itself:
(They’re basically saying everything we’ve already alleged in Count 1 applies to Count 2, too.)
Don Lemon is in trouble. At the very least it’s expensive trouble. His lawyer ain’t cheap.
Oh well.
M. Walter blogs at www.mwalterwriter.com