AG Bondi Charges 30 More Over Minnesota Church Storming, Calls Attack on Worship 'Unacceptable'
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that the Justice Department is charging 30 additional people in connection with the January anti-ICE protest that stormed a Sunday worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota — bringing the total number of federal defendants to over 50. 'You cannot attack a house of worship in America,' Bondi declared, calling the incident 'an assault on the First Amendment rights of every person of faith in this country.' The charges come as a separate civil lawsuit filed by a church member targets former CNN anchor Don Lemon and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong for their alleged roles in the disruption. The twin legal actions — federal criminal charges from the DOJ and a private civil suit from a traumatized congregant — represent the most forceful response to politically motivated church disruption in modern American history, arriving as California and Florida legislatures advance bills to stiffen penalties for interfering with worship services.
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Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
— Hebrews 10:25
The Scripture's command to gather in worship — and its warning that the impulse to forsake assembly will grow as the day approaches — takes on urgent new meaning when political mobs physically invade the sanctuary. The church's right to worship without fear of disruption is not merely a legal principle but a divine mandate.