Journalist Georgia Fort, Targeted for Covering Same Protest as Don Lemon, Livestreams Her FBI Arrest: 'Agents Are at My Door' By Paloma Chavez 103

Journalist Georgia Fort was arrested by FBI agents while streaming live on social media after covering an anti-ICE protest.

Fort, an independent journalist based in Minnesota, was one of several journalists, including Don Lemon, who filmed a Jan. 18 protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn., where demonstrators interrupted a religious service to protest the congregation’s pastor, David Easterwood, who also works as an ICE agent.

Fort’s arrest was documented on a Facebook livestream in the early hours of Friday, Jan. 30, with her telling viewers that FBI agents had been given an arrest warrant by a grand jury.

“I wanted to alert the public that agents are at my door right now,” Fort said.

Fort said her children were in the home and that “they are impacted by this,” saying, “This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media.”

“We are supposed to have our constitutional right of the freedom to film, to be a member of the press,” she continued. “I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press because now federal agents are at my door for filming the church protest a few weeks ago.”

Fort said she thought she would be targeted after her coverage of the demonstration so she followed her attorney’s advice since then.

Fort’s 17-year-old daughter spoke following her mom’s arrest, telling reporters, “My mom is being arrested for documenting what happened at Cities Church. And this is wrong. This goes against her First Amendment right as a journalist. And it’s being challenged today.”

“She is not a protester. She is not an activist,” she said. “She is a mom working to provide for her children through the only way she knows how, documenting and sharing stories of the community and the truth of what’s happening here every day in our state.”

“My 7- and 8-year old sister woke up today without a mom. My father woke up today without his wife. I’m demanding that my mom gets released,” she added.

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Fort’s arrest took place shortly after Lemon was taken into custody by more than two dozen federal agents for covering the same protest.

Lemon, a former CNN anchor who now works as an independent journalist, recently spoke out about the Trump administration’s previous failed attempt to indict him and predicted his eventual arrest.

“Look, I’m not naive,” Lemon said during an interview with Scripps News’ Alisyn Camerota on Friday, Jan. 23.

“I think they’re probably going to try again and again to shame like they did with James Comey and everyone,” he added, referencing the indictment of the former FBI director in September, which was later dismissed.

“If one doesn’t work they try something else and that fails and they try something else and then they just don’t give up because they want to save face,” he continued. “I don’t know what’s next.”

Lemon suggested the Trump administration would “go around a judge and just do it themselves” if there’s “no law to fit.”

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Prosecutors have charged Lemon with conspiracy to deprive rights and violating the FACE Act, “which prohibits the use of force or threats to intentionally interfere with someone expressing their First Amendment right to practice religion,” according to a source familiar with the investigation.

But Lemon’s attorney insists he entered the church as a journalist covering the protest. 

In a Jan. 30 post on X, Attorney General General Pam Bondi confirmed two other arrests along with Lemon and Fort: Black Lives Matter Minnesota co-founder Trahern Jeen Crews and community activist Jamael Lundy.

The arrests have added to the existing tension between Minnesota residents and the Trump administration following the fatal shootings of two American citizens by federal immigration agents: Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three on Jan. 7, and Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse who was killed two weeks later on Jan. 24.