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LOS ANGELES — Journalist Don Lemon appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday night for his first interview following his arrest last week.
Federal agents arrested Lemon while he was in Los Angeles covering the Grammy Awards.
The Department of Justice said his arrest was sparked by his coverage of an anti-ICE protest during a church service in Minnesota.
“I’m not going to let them steal my joy, but this is very serious. I mean, these are federal criminal charges,” Lemon said at the start of the interview.
The former CNN anchor said he went to the Minnesota church as a journalist, not a protester.
“There’s a lot that I cannot say, but what I will say is that I’m not a protester,” Lemon said. “I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening. I was following that one group around. And so that’s what I did. I reported on them.
Lemon said he and his attorney got word an arrest was possibly coming, so he offered to turn himself in – but Lemon said he never heard back from the DOJ when his attorney reached out.
“People who are accused of much worse things than I am accused of doing, they are allowed the courtesy – I mean Donald Trump was allowed the courtesy to turn himself in,” Lemon told Kimmel.
Before his arrest, Lemon said he was heading back to his hotel after attending a couple events when people grabbed him and put him in handcuffs.
“I got back to the hotel. I had my swag bag from the (event), and I was walking up to the room, and I pressed the elevator button and all of a sudden, I feel myself being jostled and 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.’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Finally, they identified themselves. I said, ‘If you are who you are, then where’s the warrant?’ They didn’t have a warrant. So, they had to wait for someone from outside, an FBI guy to come in, to show me a warrant on a cellphone.”
Lemon said there were about a dozen people there for the arrest and called it a “waste of resources” since his attorney said he would turn himself in.
“They want that,” Lemon said. “They want to embarrass you, they want to intimidate you, they want to instill fear, so that’s why they did it that way.”
Lemon said he was surprised by the number of supporters and reporters who were there for him once he was released.
Lemon was at the Grammys Sunday after a judge allowed him to be released on his own recognizance, without bail. He is expected to be arraigned Feb. 9.
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