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[WATCH] FBI Takes Blaze Media Journalist Into Custody For January 6 Coverage

FBI agents arrested Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker for his coverage of the January 6, 2021 protests.

Baker, an independent reporter at the time, reportedly entered the U.S. Capitol that day.

WATCH:

“On January 6, 2021, defendant Baker entered the U.S. Capitol building and remained within, near the rotunda, for approximately one hour. The defendant live-streamed his time in and around the Capitol building, using a cellular phone to broadcast a real-time video of his time inside. At one point, the defendant attempted to enter the rotunda, at which point his feed was disrupted. When his feed was restored, the defendant said, ‘I can’t go into the chamber, my stream drops,’” a statement of offense reads.

“The defendant maintained a social media presence on various websites, including the video sharing site YouTube. There, and elsewhere, he used the name ‘Stephen Ignoramus’ or some variation of the name. On multiple occasions during the live-stream, while filming and narrating, the defendant identified himself to off-camera individuals as ‘Stephen Ignoramus,’ and said that he was streaming to YouTube and Instagram. Additionally, in response to a question by an off-camera individual asking what his ‘channel’ was, the defendant said, ‘Stephen Ignoramus.’
The defendant used various social media platforms associated with his ‘Stephen Ignoramus’ handle to broadcast his video in real-time,” it continued.

“The Biden regime just arrested journalist Steve Baker for covering Jan6. Owen Shroyer was locked up as well. Free Press is dead in America when the government jails journalists who refuse to report the regime’s political agenda and lies,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) commented.

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The Blaze reports:

Steve was in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, as a reporter. Why aren’t other reporters being arrested? Or is it just that he’s reporting the truth, using the actual tapes and videos, to show America what really happened? Why is the FBI after him?

When you do investigative work, it isn’t usually just one guy doing all the work. It is a team. You have to go and vet every single thing that they come back with. Some independent person on our staff has to go through Steve’s work line by line, and then it goes through attorneys to make sure the legal language is accurate. We are very buttoned up.

Baker is the guy who has gotten a lot of the tape out about January 6, the guy who has been putting the pieces together before anybody else was putting them together. This man is a journalist — and an excellent one. And that’s why they’re after him. On Friday, the FBI arrested this journalist and put him in handcuffs without even telling him what he’s charged with in advance. He could serve prison time — because he is a journalist doing his job.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s a reporter with Blaze News whom they are arresting. There are lots of people who have reported on January 6. Why is the Blaze News reporter the one they put in cuffs? Is it because we are on to something? Are we getting closer to the truth of what happened that day? Are the elites afraid that their house of cards will come tumbling down?

“I’ve been under federal investigation for the better part of two years. Last Wednesday morning, my attorney spoke with FBI Special Agent Craig Noyes, one of the lead investigators in my case. He confirmed that the Department of Justice is continuing its probe into my journalistic activities on January 6, 2021,” Baker wrote in 2023.

Baker wrote at Blaze Media in October 2023:

Like many other reporters and photojournalists — both independents and those working directly for established media companies — I followed the story that day where it went. And it happened to be inside the Capitol Building. Depending on who is doing the counting, between 100 and 200 journalists were either already inside the Capitol, covering the event from restricted grounds, or followed the crowd inside.

The left-wing Sedition Hunters compiled a rather impressive spreadsheet of all types of journalists, with designations of “Interior (Breach),” “Interior (Press Corps),” and “Restricted Grounds” assigned to 160 different “confirmed” journalists, and an additional spreadsheet tab listing 45 “unconfirmed” reporters and videographers.

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When I first looked up the Sedition Hunters’ spreadsheet over a year ago, I wasn’t listed. So I contacted them and asked to be added. They didn’t respond to me directly. Instead, they blocked me from their Twitter page. A more recent search shows they added my name, along with my Locals blog link, my Twitter handle, and my Rumble page, with the “Interior (Breach)” designation under the “confirmed” tab.

(My journalistic activities on January 6 took place before I became a Blaze Media contributor.)

I made no effort to hide what I was doing on January 6. I did two different interviews that same day with WUSA, a CBS News affiliate in Washington, D.C. I also uploaded a short YouTube video commentary later that same evening.

Upon returning to my home in Raleigh, North Carolina, I socked myself away for five days, doing a frame-by-frame analysis of my own videos. I then wrote and published on January 13, 2021, a 9,500-word opus to my blog detailing what I experienced that day, titled, “What I Saw on January 6th in Washington, D.C.”

That piece, and a February 24, 2021, follow-up, “Who was ‘Up the Chain’ on January 6?” has been viewed and read by hundreds of thousands of readers on my blog and various social media pages.

I always expected that I would be contacted by the FBI at some point, at the very least to acquire my videos for the bureau’s investigations. I did no violence or property destruction on January 6, and I certainly did not interfere with the election certification, as I didn’t enter the Capitol Building until well after both the Senate and House of Representatives had been evacuated.

“Unlike the two previous threats my attorneys received from @FBI/@thejusticedept (Nov. 21 and Dec. 23), my self-surrender for alleged J6 crimes is set for this Friday morning in Dallas, TX. There is now a signed arrest warrant,” Baker said Tuesday.

“I must turn myself in to the @FBI at 7 am, and then the FBI (or US Marshalls?) will transport me to the Dallas courthouse, where I can meet my attorney at 9:30 am. I’m then scheduled for a 10 am hearing before the magistrate,” he added.

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“We do not yet know the specific charges. Technically … they are still ‘under seal’ until the warrant is served. All else is as yet unknown. By this weekend, I will officially be a misdemeanor domestic journo-terrorist. (Something like that.) And so it begins,” Baker continued.

Baker spoke with Glenn Beck before turning himself in to the FBI:

More from The Blaze:

Baker told Blaze News he’s been instructed to turn himself in at the agency’s field office at 7 a.m. wearing “shorts and sandals” — which he said signals that the plan likely is to go for “humiliation” and place him in an orange jumpsuit, handcuff him, and do the “prisoner transport routine.”

He added that after he’s taken to the Dallas courthouse, he’ll appear at a 10 a.m. hearing before a federal magistrate.

“They didn’t have to go this route,” Baker told Blaze News on Tuesday evening. “We have been told that my charges are only misdemeanors. And my attorneys have been assured that this will be an ‘in and out’ affair with ‘no intention’ to detain me. But rather than issuing a simple order to appear, they went the ‘arrest warrant’ route.”

What’s more, Baker said he still does not know what the charges against him are, noting to Blaze News that the powers that be won’t tell his attorney about the charges because they believe Baker will post them on social media.

Baker’s Dallas attorney, James Lee Bright, added to Blaze News that withholding the nature of the charges against his client is a “really unusual” move. Bright also said he’s hoping to get a copy of the complaint against Baker as early as possible Friday morning.

Baker also said his legal team was told there was no request to the court for detention, no need for bail, and the expectation is that he’ll be released after the proceedings. Bright told Blaze News that he anticipates Friday’s hearing to be simple.

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“We do not know if there will be pretrial travel restrictions, although that has been the norm for J6 defendants — even for misdemeanor defendants,” Baker also said. “It has also been universal that no J6ers are allowed to travel to Washington, D.C., which for obvious reasons will have a deleterious impact on my work. We also do not know if there will be any other accompanying restrictions or orders: gag order from talking about my case, no social media, limited social media, order to surrender devices and/or firearms. All unknowns.”

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.


 

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