Whoops! Abby Phillip Makes Confident Declaration About Don Lemon Indictment — Gets Almost Instant Fact-Check

That didn’t take long.

CNN star Abby Phillip claimed one of her panelists was wrong about the indictment against Don Lemon… only for that panelist to read the indictment verbatim to her minutes later and prove that Phillip was the one who was actually wrong.

Here’s what happened: New York Post reporter and frequent CNN guest Lydia Moynihan joined NewsNight on Friday to talk about Lemon’s arrest after he livestreamed — and some would argue, assisted — anti-ICE protesters who stormed a Minnesota church and wrecked its service earlier this month. Lemon insists he was not a participant in the protest and only covering it as a journalist.

Moynihan said, “The question is, is he a protester or a journalist? And the indictment obviously suggested that he posted himself at the main door, he prevented people from exiting. ”

That comment got an instant reaction from Phillip, who jumped in and said Moynihan was way off.

“No, no it does not say that,” Phillip protested. “It says that protesters did that, it names the other people, it did not say that Don did that.”

Phillip added prosecutors will have to prove Lemon was in fact blocking congregants from leaving and the segment moved along.

But 17 minutes later, Moynihan circled back to their brief tussle from earlier, saying, “I just want to respond because you accused me of mischaracterizing the indictment.”

She then read the following section directly from the court filing: “At one point, defendant LEMON posted himself at the main door of the Church, where he confronted some congregants and physically obstructed them as they tried to exit the Church building to challenge them with ‘facts’ about U.S. immigration policy.” 

Phillip looked a bit puzzled and argued the whole indictment needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

“They also characterized him as intimidating a pastor who he was calmly interviewing,” Phillip said. “So I think… the characterization of him conducting journalism is also something to be questioned.”

She did not mention that the pastor asked Lemon to leave the church during that same interview.

Lemon was arrested on Friday over the January 18 incident at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where protesters were livid because they believed one of the pastors worked as an ICE agent. The ex-CNN star’s court date is set for February 9 in Minnesota.

Watch above via CNN.

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