JONATHAN TURLEY: When Minnesota AG Ellison excuses mob rule, religious freedom is trampled

Attorney General Keith Ellison's selective enforcement pattern emerges as he excuses mob conduct at St. Paul's Cities Church during worship services.

Protesting outside a church is a First Amendment activity. Disrupting worship services, trespassing, and verbally abusing congregants inside a church constitutes conduct, not protected speech. Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.  

A past defender of extremist Louis Farrakhan, Ellison has also criticized the U.S. Constitution, arguing that "their constitution is the bedrock of American law; it’s the best evidence of a white racist conspiracy to subjugate other peoples." He is the author of the forthcoming "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution" on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

He is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal history to the Supreme Court. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals.