Lawyers representing Baker said Monday that the U.S. Department of Justice may be plotting “retaliation” against Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker over his reporting on January 6, 2021. He said there is.
“Steve's actions on January 6th have been known to the Department of Justice for three years,” Baker's attorney said. news release. “But only now, after Steve has told two major stories that are extremely embarrassing to the Department of Justice, is he potentially subject to arrest and possibly felony charges. They handcuffed him and Any action taken to detain and detain him and bring him to court by federal law enforcement will be nothing but retaliation for his recent publicity.”
Baker announced last month that the FBI had charged him with the Justice Department's Jan. 6 report and said he must turn himself in on Dec. 19. Two days after Baker's announcement, he noted that the FBI announced that his surrender had been postponed. Until Christmas is over.
He is still waiting.
Baker said last month that FBI special agents in contact with his attorney do not know what the charges against him are and won't know until a judge signs the warrant.
Baker also said that if the Justice Department moves forward with charges, travel restrictions will be imposed and reporting will be hampered. Mr. Baker is based in North Carolina, but he does a lot of work in Washington, D.C., covering court cases. . 6 videos and in-person conversations with elected officials.
“I can't help but think about the timing,” Baker said, considering he has been writing an investigative piece for Blaze News since early October on Jan. 6. [of the possible charges] suspected. ”
Blaze Media Editor-in-Chief Matthew Peterson penned an op-ed last month criticizing the Justice Department and calling for “Release Steve Baker!”
What we are seeing with the government's decision to prosecute Mr. Baker is an escalation in the weaponization of the law against perceived political opponents.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Mr. Baker learned of his impending indictment on the same day he met with two Capitol Police whistleblowers. The Justice Department also revealed that Baker spent more than a week watching hundreds of hours of closed-circuit television video from the Capitol, revealing previously undisclosed details about the events of January 6. I don't think it's a coincidence that he decided to press ahead with this matter.
What else did Baker's lawyer say?
In a news release, Baker's attorney expressed concern about future action from the federal government.
“We have now received information that Steve's reporting has so disturbed officials at multiple federal agencies that they are charging Steve with more serious crimes and that those more serious crimes were committed in the early morning hours. “Efforts are currently underway to find grounds to use this as a pretext to search his home and issue an arrest warrant for him and his family,” his lawyer said.
News release details:
If this turns out to be true, and soon a search warrant and arrest warrant pull Steve from his home in the early hours of the morning, it will be retribution for journalists who exercised their First Amendment right to report information that would be embarrassing to government officials. This will serve as evidence. .
This would constitute a violation of new institutional norms by the Department of Justice. The undersigned attorneys include former Justice Department prosecutors (each with more than 20 years of service) who, over the past three years, have accused the Department of Justice of using arrest warrants and SWAT raids. We have witnessed other norms of policy and procedure being broken. Arrest those charged only with misdemeanors.
Now, journalists who reported embarrassing facts for the government are being prosecuted. On January 6, dozens of media workers from various organizations and many independent freelance journalists like Steve were present at the Capitol on January 6th. Many people went inside the Capitol building to capture what was happening inside. We have been compiling a list of all such journalists over the past few months. We call on these journalists and their employers to publicly stand up for the First Amendment and denounce all efforts by the Department of Justice to prosecute Steve.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request Monday for comment from Baker's attorney on the news release.
What is your background?
Mr. Baker discussed the January 6 legal story in two October commentaries for Blaze News (here and here). In it, Baker said he had been under federal investigation for the better part of two years after an independent journalistic campaign on Jan. 6 that began before he joined Blaze News.
From Mr. Baker's initial comment:
I didn't even try to hide what I was doing on January 6th. I had two different interviews on the same day with WUSA, the CBS News affiliate in Washington, DC. I also uploaded a short YouTube video commentary later that same night.
After returning home to Raleigh, North Carolina, I spent five days analyzing my videos frame by frame. I then wrote a 9,500-word essay detailing my experience that day on my blog, which I published on January 13, 2021, under the title “''.What I saw in Washington DC on January 6th”
That article and its follow-up on February 24, 2021, “Who will be “Up the Chain” on January 6th?” has been viewed and read by hundreds of thousands of readers on my blog and various social media pages.
I always thought that someday the FBI would contact me and at least get my video for their investigation. I did not commit any violence or vandalism on January 6th, and I certainly did not interfere with the certification of the election, as I did not enter the Capitol until long after both the Senate and House had been evacuated. do not have.
After the FBI made initial contact with Mr. Baker in July 2021, Mr. Baker revealed that on October 18, 2021, in North Carolina, he and his attorney met with FBI Special Agents Gerrit Doss and Craig Noyes. He said he met him in person. Baker said at the end of the interview. And his attorney volunteered to submit Baker's Jan. 6 video, but nothing happened.
Baker said his attorney received an email from Assistant U.S. Attorney Anita Eve on Nov. 17, 2021, stating that Baker is expected to be “indicted this week” and that the charges include interstate extortion. He said it was property damage, but Baker said this was a sham. In addition, Baker and his attorney said they informed the media that he, an independent journalist, would be indicted for his Jan. 6 interview.
Baker noted that Eve was forwarded a copy of the news release and told her attorney she was “not thrilled” with its contents. Mr. Baker's lawyer responded: Mr. Baker clearly feels threatened by this accusation and is using his First Amendment rights to rally his support. …Do you mean to refrain from making any further comments? …He has nothing to hide. But he has the right to be honest about his experiences and share his opinions. … It is unfair to ask him to remain silent while he endures federal charges. ” Mr. Baker's attorney again volunteered to submit his Jan. 6 video.
Despite threats to file charges “within a week,” Baker said he hadn't heard from Eve's office in nearly two years, and in August 2023, his lawyer announced that Eve had signed a full trial in January. accepted service of grand jury subpoena.Baker's 6 videos of him personally recorded
“Grand juries are typically convened for felonies, not misdemeanors,” Baker wrote in his second commentary. Oddly, the renewed interest from the Justice Department coincided perfectly with his discussions with Blaze News to serve as an investigative journalist and columnist.
Baker told Blaze News last month that he was “quite aggressively poking the bear.”
In late August of that year, Baker and his attorney delivered a flash drive containing the video to FBI Special Agent Noyce.
Mr. Baker concluded his second commentary with the promise: “The truth is, my life has not been destroyed. Still. But many other lives have been destroyed. Through my research, I have discovered that many 's lives were destroyed for no good reason. And 'that's intolerable.' ”
What did Baker's investigation reveal?
Baker first analyzed Jan. 6 for Blaze News after spending countless hours in his House subcommittee office observing the closed-circuit video of Jan. 6 frame by frame. , which took place last October — and it made him wonder — did Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus commit perjury at the Oath Keepers trial?
Shortly thereafter, Blaze Media Editor-in-Chief Matthew Peterson appealed to House Speaker Mike Johnson to release all videos due to the slow pace at which everything recorded on video can be viewed without restriction. . On November 17, Mr. Johnson did just that.
Mr. Baker's investigative work also led to two additional analyzes focusing on Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn. “January 6th and the N-word it wasn't” and “Harry Dunn's description of January 6th doesn't add up. At all.”
In December, Baker claimed to have discovered significant misconduct involving Dunn, Capitol Police, members of the media and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
Last week, Mr. Baker claimed that a just-released video clip from the Jan. 6 show at the U.S. Capitol showed Mr. Lazarus giving false testimony at the Oath Keepers trial.
Proof of perjury | The truth of January 6thyoutube.be
Also last week, Baker revealed that the person who discovered the pipe bomb at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021 (previously referred to as a “passerby”) was actually a U.S. Capitol Police officer. Added another analysis revealing that the suspect was a plainclothes police officer. .
anything else?
Baker's lawyers told the Justice Department at the end of the news release: “If you are confident in the strength of your case against Steve Baker and wish to file a complaint in the District of Columbia District Court, we encourage you to join the court. ” he said. The defense's terms that Steve's case be heard in the Eastern District of North Carolina or the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. ”
They also asked, “Are the residents of these two districts unfit to serve as jurors in Steve's case? Are the federal judiciary authorities in those two districts unable to provide a fair and impartial trial? On what basis do you believe that the United States can only get a fair trial in the District of Columbia and not in any of those “United States”? ”
As for Baker, he said in a release that he will not be bullied into silence.
“I am not intimidated,” he said. “I will continue to report my findings on the evidence that becomes available for consideration. I have followed and reported on dozens of defendants' trials on January 6, The more I do that, the more anxious I become about what's going on.'' It's all in the name of 'justice.' ”
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