President Donald Trump has occasionally referred to news reports that he didn’t like as “illegal.” That’s a dream. But he’s trying to make that dream come true.

In yet another attempt to frighten the news media, the Trump administration has manufactured criminal cases against two independent journalists who reported firsthand on a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest that disrupted services inside a St. Paul, Minnesota, church where a pastor is an ICE official. In the case of one journalist, former CNN news anchor Don Lemon, Trump also seeks to harass a long-time critic.

The federal charges – conspiracy to deprive the right to worship – are so flimsy when applied to Lemon and local reporter Georgia Fort that two courts declined to approve arrest warrants.

A case could be made that Lemon and Fort trespassed, because they didn’t leave the building immediately after the pastor asked them to and because the right to gather news does not include committing a crime. But trespassing is usually only a misdemeanor, would have required too many other people to also be charged, and wouldn’t have been the dramatic statement that the Department of Justice wanted.

The DOJ indictment cites various “overt acts” by the journalists in support of the criminal counts, all described in absurdly hyperbolic language. They supposedly “oppressed, threatened and intimidated” worshippers by crowding the pastor during an interview, approaching some congregants for interviews, and “confronting” other congregants with questions as they emerged from the church. One person cut short a Lemon interview that he didn’t like; the others gave interviews, maybe not happily, but at least willingly.

All of those acts … they’re in the journalist job description. And within the First Amendment.

Throughout his livestreamed report, Lemon, who worked as a reporter for WBRC 6 News in Birmingham in 1996, identified himself as a journalist, not a participant. He didn’t join in the chanting of the other protesters. But his livestreamed commentary and interview questions – pointed and preachy – made it obvious that he sympathized with the protestors. It was not the kind of neutrality that many journalism educators and professionals prefer. But advocacy journalism is a valuable form of journalism and anyone who wants to practice it has the right to do so. It’s no basis for thinking the DOJ took the proper action.

Trying to criminalize journalists for, in essence, doing their jobs represents an escalation in Trump’s war against unfavorable press and reporters he doesn’t like. Because they are independent and don’t have a corporate boss who thinks it’s best to cave in, Lemon and Fort will likely fight as far as they can. The bigger question is whether this moment spooks other journalists out of doing their jobs. I don’t believe that it will.

I’m more worried about the impact of a different recent escalation by Trump.

The DOJ has loosened the policy from previous administrations and, on Jan. 14, used a search warrant to raid the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, even though she is not the target of an information leak investigation. The FBI took her cellphone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. Reporters and especially confidential tipsters who bring important stories to reporters have to be terrified. Trump probably dreams about that too.

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Tom Arenberg is an instructor of news media at the University of Alabama. He worked for The Birmingham News and the Alabama Media Group for 30 years. He published this commentary originally as a post on his blog, The Arenblog.

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