What does the KKK Act Have to do with Don Lemon?To be clear…it should have absolutely nothing to do with Don Lemon. But the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, stated that Lemon, who covered a protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, could be charged with violating the FACE Act and the KKK Act. She made the assertion, without conducting a formal investigation, during an appearance on a right-wing show on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and she put Lemon “on notice” via a social media post on January 18, the day of the protest. During an interview just before the protest, reverend, lawyer and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, told Don Lemon that the “clandestine operation” targets “key locations,” where people “don’t expect us to come there, and then we disrupt business as usual.” Lemon maintains that he did not know where the protest would take place, and that the Trump administration is attempting to paint him as the agitator leading this protest. For context, the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was enacted to enforce the 14th Amendment, which expanded citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law to include millions of formerly enslaved people. Under this act, it is a federal crime to “deny any group, or individual, any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection, named in the Constitution.” This next line is when my ears perked up: “To enforce the law, the President could suspend habeas corpus, deploy the U.S. military, or use “other means, as he may deem necessary.” In addition to attempting to center Don Lemon as their primary target through media interviews and social media posts, the Department of Justice may also be setting the stage for an expanded military presence in Minneapolis, and in other locations across the nation. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administrations previous national guard deployments, but this move to apply the KKK Act could open that door again. During this second Trump administration, I’ve said again and again that it feels like a reconnaissance mission to identify pressure points. How much violence will people accept? How much push back will the Trump administration receive from the courts? How many rights can they violate? And the mention and threat of using the KKK Act could be yet another layer in the Trump Administration’s pressure campaign.
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