Transcript of DOJ Probes Church Protesters & ‘Havana Syndrome’ Revelations | 1.20.26

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The DOJ is vowing charges for rioters who disrupted a local church service as chaos in Minneapolis continues to escalate.

We are investigating exactly who they are, who coordinated with them, who paid for it, and who was there.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor, John Bickley. It's Tuesday, January 20th, and this is Morning Wire.

Virginia is bracing for a turbulent legislative session as Democrats roll out a slew of controversial bills.

Executive action alone is not enough. To deliver lasting relief, we need legislation. And new evidence comes to light about the so-called Havana syndrome, with the Pentagon now reportedly owning the futuristic weapon.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wires. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Federal authorities are investigating after anti-ice activists stormed a church service in Minnesota. The protesters, accompanied by former CNN anchor, Don Lemon, interrupted worship and demanded that congregates condemn ice.

Joining us with further details is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So Megan, just to start, can you walk us through this scene inside the church?

Yeah, Georgia. So this unfolded during the Sunday morning worship service at City's Church in Saint Paul, and that's a Southern Baptist congregation. A group of anti-ICE activists entered the sanctuary mid-service, and they started chanting and shouting accusations and basically demanding that the church members present condemn ICE.

Go soon. Go soon.

Why are you not at Whipple every day, fighting for the humanity, standing for our people?

Where are you? You drink your coffee, you got your jewelry, you have your nice clothes. But what do you do? What do you do to stand for your All your Latino community.

The protesters accused the church of supporting ICE because one of their staff pastors also happens to be a field director for ICE's Saint Paul office. But I spoke to the founding pastor of this church and several other people associated with it. They told me that this is not what you would think of as a culture warring church. This isn't the church where the pastors make political statements or join demonstrations or anything like that. This was simply because they happen to have an ICE official on staff. In In fact, lead pastor Jonathan Parnell ultimately had to cancel the service once the children who were there watching the sermon started crying. One source told me that these kids were terrified.

What do we know about these protesters? Who are they and was there any organization that put this together?

Yeah, Georgia, this does look to be somewhat organized. Several of these protesters are associated with groups like Black Lives Matter and the Racial Justice Network. So the same groups who rioted and protested over the of George Floyd. In fact, one of the ring leaders, as I reported for the Daily Wire, is a paid protester who has a history of harassing churches. William Kelly and his group of activists regularly protest outside Christ Church in DC because war Secretary, Pete Hegset, attends there. For months on end, they have screamed at church members through a bullhorn, doing things like shouting obsenities at church members as they try to enter the sanctuary with their families.

How dare you have a rainbow-fucking umbrella, you Nazi. You endocinate these children so you could call them a group of them.

Isn't that what it is?

Now, Pastor Joe Rigny is actually connected to both of these churches. He was a founder and longtime pastor of City's Church in Saint Paul, and he also helped plant Christ Church in DC, and he's preached there as well. He told me that these attacks in DC have at times been so severe. Protesters ruptured a church member's eardrum, and he had to go to the hospital. Rigny says that these are paid agitators who are basically going to take any excuse they can to protest and harass churches.

Because of the George Floyd riots, the Black Lives Matter organizations were already there and have just been latent and inactive. Then now there's a new thing that triggered them.

Now, has law enforcement stepped in in any capacity to prevent some of this, or is this just considered free speech?

Yeah. So no one has been arrested yet. Local police monitor the protest, but they said that they made no arrests as demonstrators left the building because they were working to balance respect for free speech with the rights of the congregations to freely worship. Don Lemon, former CNN anchor who was with these protesters as they stormed into the church in Minnesota, is also claiming that he was simply there to document free speech. But the Department of Justice feels pretty differently. Doj Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dylan, told The Daily Wire that Lemon is absolutely wrong.

I feel like I have to give a First Amendment 101 primer to people, including journalists like Lemon, because you don't have a First Amendment right to trespass and invade a house of worship. It's literally illegal to do that, and it's not protected by the First Amendment.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also says the DOJ is now investigating these protesters, including Lemon, for violations of federal civil rights laws and the FACE Act, which protects worshippers from intimidation. She says that even if Minnesota does not prosecute, federal authorities will.

Well, I would send a message if Don Lemon was affected by that. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Virginia swore in its Democratic slate of leaders over the weekend, including Governor Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones. They and their Congressional counterparts are laying out a heavily progressive agenda for the state.

Daily Wire political reporter, Cameron Arcan, joins us now to discuss. Welcome, Cameron. Virginia has officially now shifted from a Republican governor's office to a Democratic one, and Democrats have control of both houses there. First, there was a major immigration action the new Governor Spanberger took right off the bat. What exactly did she do?

Yes. So one of the first things Abigail Spanberger did as governor was something she had promised for some time now, which was to end the state police cooperation with immigration and customs enforcement. Now, this was something that Governor Glenn Yunkin signed last year when Trump took office to basically foster cooperation between the state police and the federal government when it came to those deportation efforts. Now, this is largely due to the fact that there's a lot of district attorneys in Northern Virginia who disagree with a lot of the immigration policies of the Trump administration. So what this essentially did was it allowed for another degree of cooperation between the federal and the state government in a way that might have been more difficult under previous leadership.

So this is a move toward sanctuary policies away from the cooperation that Glenn Yunkin had offered.

Correct.

There was also some early action taken by Democrats in the state related to redistricting. What's going on there?

Yes. So one of the first things attorney general, Jay Jones did was issue a legal opinion in support of redistricting. Now, the Virginia General Assembly is looking at possibly putting up for a vote mid-decade redistricting like we've seen in California and Texas. Now, what this move would do is it would essentially take away four GOP favorite seeds in the state of Virginia as we barrel toward the midterm election. Now, mid-decade redistricting has been very controversial, but obviously this legal opinion is one of the first steps toward potentially getting the ball rolling for getting Virginia voters to decide whether or not that will move forward in the November election.

We've also seen Democrats in the state propose a number of other pretty significant laws. What other actions are they seeking to take?

Another thing that could potentially end up on the ballot, and we've seen this in Arizona and other states, would be a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee a right to an abortion in the state of Virginia. So that would be the first and foremost thing. But something to really pay close attention to is now that Democrats have a trifecta in the state before there was tension between Yunkin and the Democrats in the General Assembly, now that there's a trifecta, we could see a whole host of liberal policies being able to make their way through more successfully under the Spanberger administration. So pay very close attention to what bills we could potentially see making their way through.

As you've laid out, a lot of drastic changes here proposed by Democrats now that they're fully in power in the state. Thank you so much for joining us, Cameron. Thank you. The Pentagon believes it may have solved a decade long mystery surrounding Havana syndrome, mysterious ailment impacting US personnel stationed around the world.

Daily Wire senior editor, Kabbit Phillips, is here with more. So, Kabbit, for long-time listeners, you've been covering this story for almost five years now, and finally, we have a few more answers. So can you just give us some background of what Havana syndrome is?

Yeah, this story is equal parts terrifying and fascinating. As far as we know, Havana syndrome started back in 2016. That is when everyone, from American military officers to diplomats, CIA agents, even White House staff, suddenly began reporting bizarre medical elements that were consistent with head trauma. Dr. Doctors treating the patients said their symptoms were similar to those experienced by football players or car crash victims, but they could not figure out what was causing them. And while the symptoms varied, they all had one thing in common. They started after the victims experienced a sudden and overwhelming high-pitched ringing in their ears. Some said it felt like they'd been hit by an invisible force field. At first, officials thought that these were isolated and natural medical events. They called them, Anomalous Health Episodes in the government. But as time went on, a clear pattern emerged. New Two victims were overwhelmingly coming down with the ailment while working on sensitive diplomatic events across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and especially Cuba, thus the name Havana syndrome. The Pentagon has been tight-lipped about the total number of cases, but reports say that there have been at least 200 victims, some of whom are these small children of diplomats.

Others are now permanently disabled and forced to retire, suffering from severe short and long-term memory loss.

You said the Pentagon has been tight-lipped about this, but how have they responded to this possible threat.

So multiple agencies launched independent investigations. The CIA, for example, initially believe the symptoms were being caused by, Direct pulsed radio frequency energy. But last year, the intelligence community concluded their years-long investigation and determined it was, quote, very unlikely that these symptoms were caused by any foreign adversary. But it seems there's more to the story. New reports confirmed that the Pentagon last year secretly acquired a device that they now believe may be responsible for this ailment after all.

This was at the very tail end of the Biden administration. They supposedly purchased or somehow acquired a device that they confirmed does this?

Right. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Pentagon secretly purchased a device that emits high-frequency pulsed radio waves. Now, we don't know exactly how they got their hands on this thing, but reports say it cost in the eight-figure range and was acquired covertly as part of a, quote, undercover operation. Presumably, they got it on the black market. The Pentagon has been secretly studying this for the past year. And get this, according to CNN, it not only is small enough to fit inside of a backpack, it also reportedly contains, you guessed it, Russian components, which lends credibility to the theory that these symptoms were caused by a foreign adversary. It also gives vindication to victims who say that they were gaslit by the Pentagon and told that their symptoms were not the result of an attack. To that point, Mark Polymeropolis, one of the first CIA officers to go public after experiencing Havana syndrome, told CNN, If the US government has has indeed uncovered such devices, then the CIA owes all the victims a major and public apology for how we've been treated as parias.

Now, this was made more interesting by some recent rumors that during the Maduro operation, a couple of weeks ago, certain people on the ground were experiencing some phenomena like this. Tell us about that.

Yeah, here's where it gets maybe even more interesting. Unconfirmed testimony from an alleged Venezuelan security guard claimed that he and others guarding Maduro were incapacitated by a, quote, very intense soundwave that made him and the others, quote, feel like my head was exploding from the inside. Again, that report was not confirmed, but White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levit, did share it on social media saying, Stop what you are doing and read this. Now, for their part, the House Homeland Security Committee launched a new investigation into Havana syndrome, demanding the Pentagon provide them with a, quote, detailed explanation of the procurement process used to acquire the device, along with the results of their study into the device, and much more. They, in Congress, like many other Americans, myself included, have a lot of questions they weren't answered.

Well, and that post on X that Caroline Levet referred to from the alleged security detail officer. It is stunning if you haven't read it yet.

It is sci-fi stuff in your life.

Yeah. Kabbit, thanks for reporting. Absolutely.

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