WATCH: Dana Bash Grills Leading Trump DOJ Official On Don Lemon Arrest in Tense CNN Interview

CNN’s Dana Bash grilled Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about the arrest of her former colleague Don Lemon.

In a tense interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Bash confronted Blanche on why the DOJ brought the case against Lemon even after it had been rejected by a magistrate judge.

“Former CNN anchor Don Lemon and another journalist, Georgia Fort, were arrested on Friday on charges they violated federal law during a tense protest at a Minnesota church,” Bash said. “A conservative federal judge, somebody who clerked for Antonin Scalia, already had rejected those warrants and wrote that there is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so. Then an appeals court held up that decision. Why did you then bring this case to a grand jury after it already had been rejected by multiple judges?

“The judge on the appeals court said that there was clearly probable cause and there was absolutely probable cause that a crime had been committed, OK?” Blanche said. He added, “And so, yes, you’re right. A judge in that court had said there wasn’t probable cause. But guess what? Our system doesn’t allow judges to make that decision. They can make that decision to get an arrest warrant on a complaint, but only a grand jury can bring forth an indictment.And so that’s what we did. We went to a grand jury, which, as you know, are 25 citizens from Minneapolis and around … that decide whether there’s probable cause. And that’s who returned an indictment.”

Bash cited two of the acts of alleged conspiracy in the indictment and questioned why those actions should not be protected by the First Amendment.

“‘Defendant Lemon told his livestream audience about congregants leaving the church and about a young man who Lemon could see was frightened, scared and crying. And Lemon observed that the congregants’ reactions were understandable because the experience was traumatic and uncomfortable, which he said was the purpose,'” Bash said, quoting from the indictment. “Overt act 21 says ‘As the operation continued, defendant Lemon acknowledged the nature of it by expressing surprise that the police hadn’t yet arrived at the church and admitted knowing that the whole point of the operation was to disrupt.’ Why wouldn’t a jury at trial see this as a journalist observing what is happening, which is protected by the First Amendment?”

“Well, you conveniently left out multiple allegations in that indictment about what else Mr. Lemon did, including surreptitiously avoiding saying where they were going, being part of the planning, being part of the decisions to make sure the police didn’t know this was happening and federal law enforcement didn’t know this was happening,” Blanche said. “There are multiple allegations there. And guess what? He gets to have a lawyer and he gets to have a defense. … And so if he wants to go forward with the defense that, ‘Aw, shucks, I was just a journalist,’ he can do that. But, obviously, as the indictment lays out and what you didn’t read on the air, there’s a lot of things that Mr. Lemon did that you would never do as a journalist. You would never do that, let’s be honest.

“This is not about me,” Bash said. “This is about what happened and this is about kind of the rules of the road.”

“No, but journalistic standards matter,” Blanche replied.

Bash then confronted Blanche about whether the DOJ has ulterior motives in pursuing this case.

“Bottom-line question for you is, was this really about what you just described, or was it about trying to make an example out of somebody who the president has sparred with?” Bash asked.

“I don’t even know that the president’s even ever thought of Don Lemon,” said Blanche. “I don’t know whether that’s true or not.But I will tell you, we’re not making examples of people.”

The CNN anchor called out the reaction from Trump and the White House to push back on Blanche’s claim that Lemon was not on Trump’s radar.

“The White House, on the official Twitter handle, celebrated his arrest with a social media and a chain emoji,” Bash said. “And so it’s pretty clear that they’re very well aware in the White House of this.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t aware… No, no, you said that President Trump had some vendetta or something against Mr. Lemon,” Blanche replied. I said I don’t know whether he even ever thought of Mr. Lemon. I have no idea.”

“Just yesterday, he called him a sleazebag,” Bash said.

Watch above, via CNN.

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