Ronan Farrow

For nearly a year, the administration has said that DOGE had no unauthorized access to your Social Security data. A new government filing admits that was false.

(17/17) Press freedom is a critical and fragile right enshrined in our constitution, and one that both parties threaten. Americans who want open access to information—whether nonpartisan or opinionated—should care about this shrinking space on both sides of the aisle.

(16/17) Reporting is why we have reforms that define our modern democracy—from the Pentagon Papers under Nixon exposing the lies of the Vietnam War, to the Snowden revelations under Obama ending bulk collection of phone records.

(15/17) The point isn't that appeals or grand juries are illegitimate—it’s that, in a newsgathering case beginning with minor offenses, this degree of escalation, with a splashy political announcement, is unusual. It demands scrutiny from anyone who cares about press freedom.

(14/17) That combined escalation—procedural and statutory—is evidence of an erosion of the principle of not criminalizing newsgathering that goes well beyond what we saw with Baker.

(13/17) Using §241 against reporters covering a protest is a radical expansion of the statute. It reframes newsgathering—being present to document a disruption—as a "conspiracy" to participate in it, converting passive observation into an active federal felony.

(12/17) They aren't just accused of trespassing, but of "Conspiracy to Deprive Rights" (18 U.S.C. § 241)—a Reconstruction-era statute historically used to prosecute the KKK for terrorizing voters.

(11/17) That's a a pivot to a venue that virtually guaranteed the outcome sought—the Bureau of Justice Statistics has historically found that federal grand juries indict in 99.9% of cases.

(10/17) With Fort and Lemon, the government was denied a warrant by a Magistrate Judge, appealed via a “nuclear” Writ of Mandamus and was denied by the 8th Circuit, then finally leaned on the roadmap provided by a single concurrence from Judge Grasz to impanel a Grand Jury.

(9/17) The Biden DOJ’s prosecution of Baker after Jan 6th demands the same scrutiny. He may have been a partisan commentator, acted in sloppy ways that blurred the lines with the movement he was covering, and remained in spaces illegally—but he was newsgathering.

(8/17) It is a longstanding legal norm that prosecutors should avoid criminalizing the act of reporting (see Branzburg v. Hayes, noting newsgathering is “not without its First Amendment protections,” or the DOJ’s own Media Guidelines).

(7/17) My point is that any time a journalist, of any political persuasion, is arrested while newsgathering—whether on a minor infraction or a boosted felony charge—it is vital to examine if this is a legitimate law enforcement action or a symptom of a wider crackdown on free press values.

(6/17) They may have made mistakes by becoming too enmeshed with the protesters they were covering. If they failed to disperse, that is a potential offense—we’ll see as the case develops.

(5/17) My point, as an attorney and investigative journalist known for reporting critical of Democrats, is not that Lemon and Fort didn’t trespass or that they're above the law. Coming up as a network investigative correspondent, respecting property boundaries—and leaving when asked—is a big lesson.

(4/17) Under Trump 2.0, we are seeing the same trend accelerated, most visibly with the January raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson—seizing her devices during a leak investigation—and now this procedural offensive against Lemon and Fort.

(3/17) That trend has continued. Under Biden: the FBI raid on Tim Burke (using the CFAA to criminalize finding public URLs), the Project Veritas "diary" raids targeting journalistic materials, and the delayed prosecution of Steve Baker for trespassing on Jan 6th...

(2/17) What one party does to shrink the space for newsgathering is a loaded gun the next party can use. I’ve always covered this as a bipartisan problem—here I am in 2020 reporting on a DOJ whistleblower and noting that going after reporters' sources was a wider trend:

(1/17 🧵) Here's my further analysis of the recent journalist arrests, for those not inclined to hunt down my posts elsewhere. While this is a political flash point, I do not believe it is a partisan issue. It is part of a pattern perpetrated by, and that hurts, both parties:

First, journalists who step one foot over the line are targeted. Then scrutiny fades—and power operates in the dark.

The real question isn’t “Did Don Lemon trespass?”
It’s: why is the government working this hard to handcuff reporters?

History shows a pattern here.

When governments begin criminalizing the observation of dissent—using technical oversteps as justification—it’s often a warning sign. We’ve seen similar patterns precede press crackdowns in countries like Turkey, Russia, and Myanmar.

And this isn’t happening in isolation.

It follows an FBI raid targeting Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, months of FCC threats over critical coverage, and Pentagon rules so restrictive that many reporters lost credentials.

Prosecutors traditionally avoid criminalizing newsgathering unless there’s a compelling public danger.

Appealing past a judicial rejection to secure the arrest of reporters marks a shift in how the state approaches the press—regardless of ideology or the reporters involved.

In a functioning system, that ends it.

Instead, the DOJ appealed to a higher court to override the magistrate’s ruling and force the warrants through.
That procedural move—seeking arrests after a judge said the evidence didn’t support them—is the anomaly.

But here’s the key distinction in this case.

A federal magistrate judge reviewed the video evidence last week and drew a sharp line. He approved arrest warrants for some activists—but rejected warrants for the reporters.
He found no probable cause they committed a federal crime.

That legal theory isn’t new.

Similar reasoning has been used against journalists across the political spectrum—including in the Steve Baker case, where an independent reporter was charged based on his presence and filming during January 6.

The principle should be applied consistently.

It’s important to acknowledge the government’s strongest argument.

The reporters entered private property during a service. When asked to leave, they kept filming. By staying as protesters disrupted the service, they blurred the line between observer and participant.

That created a legal opening.

The church's pastor, David Easterwood, is Field Office Director for ICE—one of the highest-ranking deportation officials in the Midwest.

Protesters were there to expose what they saw as an official using religious privacy as cover. Reporters were there to document it.

They’re charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Written to protect abortion clinics, it also covers places of worship.

The government says the law applies because the protest took place at Cities Church in St. Paul.

Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have been released.

But the procedural history now emerging is unusual. Before the arrests, a federal magistrate judge found no probable cause to arrest them. The government appealed anyway.

Here’s why that matters—and what it signals more broadly.

On December 30, a federal judge ordered the administration to continue funding the CFPB, blocking its attempt to starve the consumer watchdog of cash. The legal fight over the agency’s future is ongoing—and could reshape consumer protections nationwide.