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ROA federal magistrate judge reviewed the evidence and found no probable cause to arrest two reporters. The government appealed anyway.
Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have been released, but the court docket shows this case turns on a deeper institutional question—not just whether they trespassed.
It’s true the reporters entered private property and continued filming after being asked to leave. The government’s theory is that this crossed the line from observation into participation.
That theory is not new. Similar reasoning has been used in cases involving journalists across the political spectrum, including the prosecution of independent reporter Steve Baker for his presence and filming on January 6.
That context matters. But so does a critical distinction.
In this case, court records show a magistrate judge reviewed the video evidence and explicitly rejected arrest warrants for the reporters, while approving warrants for activists who disrupted the service. He found no probable cause to charge the journalists.
By appealing to a higher court to override that ruling, the DOJ moved beyond relying on existing precedent and into a procedural escalation—seeking arrests after a judge said the evidence didn’t support them.
Longstanding law enforcement norms caution against criminalizing newsgathering, especially when judicial checks cut the other way. History shows that when governments begin treating technical oversteps as grounds to arrest reporters, broader press crackdowns often follow.
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