HANDCUFFS: Independent journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested after covering a protest that interrupted a Minneapolis church service last weekend. Lemon was accused under federal law along with protesters who interrupted a church service presided over by a pastor who also works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

  Lemon, his producer, and seven protesters were charged with a conspiracy to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship.

The indictment accuses Lemon of conspiracy “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate multiple persons.”

  The charges against Lemon had been rejected by two levels of federal court before prosecutors took it to a grand jury. His arrest was immediately criticized as an attack on a free press.

  Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on Twitter/X that “At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon” and that he had acted “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.” 

   When he was arrested Thursday Lemon was in Los Angeles covering the Grammy Awards. “I have spent my entire career covering the news,”  Lemon told reporters yesterday outside the Los Angeles federal building. “There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable.”

THE EPSTEIN REVELATIONS: The Department of Justice yesterday released millions of pages of files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, some of which mention Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson, and President Donald Trump.

  The release also included 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

  Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference that the White House “had no oversight and they did not tell this department how to do our review and what to look for and what to redact or not redact.” Blanche said, “We did not protect President Trump.”

  The depth of what’s in those files will take time to plumb. Hours after their release a group of 18 Epstein abuse survivors said in a joint statement that the disclosure has not held the right people accountable. “Once again, survivors are having their names and identifying information exposed, while the men who abused us remain hidden and protected,” the statement said. “That is outrageous.” 

THE REGIME:

— President Trump named Christopher Warsh, 55, a former Federal Reserve governor, to be the man to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Fed when Powell’s term expires this spring.

  Trump has been hounding Powell to lower interest rates and you have to believe he picked a replacement who will carry the torch. But the chair of the Fed alone does not control interest rates.

  A former hard liner who believed in higher interest rates to control inflation, Warsh more recently has been campaigning for lower rates. Trump told reporters yesterday, “He certainly wants to cut rates. I’ve been watching him for a long time.”

— The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the killing by federal agents of veterans hospital nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. While this may seem to be a step toward a pursuit of justice, federal agencies have blocked Minnesota authorities from investigating Pretti’s death as a homicide and possibly a murder. 

— President Trump sued the Internal Revenue Service for $10 billion in damages for the unauthorized release of his taxes in 2020 revealing that he had paid little or no taxes for years.  The suit has federal agencies defending themselves in court from the chief executive.

  The returns showed that Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency in 2016 and another $750 in his first year in office. They also revealed that Trump paid no income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years after reporting that he had lost much more money than he made.

  Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor, admitted to leaking the Trump returns and was sentenced to five years in prison.

— An internal memo addressed to all ICE personnel gives them wider latitude, telling them that federal law empowers them to make warrantless arrests of people they believe are undocumented immigrants if they are “likely to escape” before an arrest warrant can be obtained. It’s a door of legal reasoning ICE agents can drive a truck through.

THE OBIT PAGE: Comic actress Catherine O’Hara who played McCaulay Culkin’s mother in “Home Alone” and starred in the television series “Schitt’s Creek,” died at age 71 after what was described as a short illness.

  The Canadian O’Hara got her start in the Second City comedy troupe and was a member of the cast of SCTV, a Canadian skit series. She played the wife of Eugene Levy in the television series about a couple that loses their fortune and have to move to a small town called “Schitt’s Creek.” 

  O’Hara also appeared with Levy as a married couple in “Best in Show,” a mockumentary about dog shows. She appeared in “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), about the production of a small-time stage musical; “A Mighty Wind,” a lampoon of the folk music circuit; and “For Your Consideration,” about a small film up for an Oscar.

  The enduring “Home Alone” about accidentally leaving her son at home over Christmas while the family travelled to France came as a surprise hit. “I never had a sense of whether something’s going to be big or not,” she told an interviewer, “and I don’t think I’ve ever put too much thought into it, because you can’t control it.”

BELOW THE FOLD: In Chilly Minneapolis red knitted hats with a tassel have become a popular sign of resistance to the ICE occupation of the city, similar to hats worn in protest by Norwegians during the Nazi occupation.  It’s called the “Melt the ICE” hat.

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