Justice Dept. may be orchestrating 'retaliation' against Blaze News' Steve Baker for his Jan. 6 reporting: Baker's attorneys

The U.S. Department of Justice may be orchestrating a "retaliation" against Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker over his reporting about Jan. 6, 2021, attorneys representing Baker said Monday.

"Steve’s actions on January 6 have been known to the Department of Justice for 3 years," Baker's attorneys said in a news release. "But it is only now — after Steve has broken two major stories greatly embarrassing to the DOJ — that he is possibly being targeted for arrest and possibly felony prosecution. Any action taken to put him in handcuffs, hold him in custody, and have him transported to court by federal law enforcement will be nothing other than retaliation for his recent reporting."

Baker announced last month that the FBI said the DOJ would be charging him for his Jan. 6 reporting and that he needed to self-surrender Dec. 19. Two days after Baker's announcement, he noted that the FBI said his self-surrender was postponed until after Christmas.

He's still waiting.

Baker said last month an FBI special agent in contact with his attorney didn't know what the charges are against him — and wouldn't know until a judge signs off on a warrant.

Baker also told Blaze News that if the Justice Department goes forward with charges, travel restrictions will be placed on him, which will hamper his reporting, as he's based in North Carolina but works a great deal in Washington, D.C., covering trials, viewing Jan. 6 videos, and speaking face-to-face with elected officials.

Given Baker has been writing Blaze News investigative stories on Jan. 6 since early October, he said he "cannot help but think the timing [of the possible charges] is suspect."

Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson penned an op-ed last month criticizing the DOJ and demanding that it "free Steve Baker!"

What we see with the government’s decision to prosecute Baker is an escalation in its weaponization of the law against its perceived political enemies.

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Baker learned of his coming indictment the very same day he met with a pair of Capitol Police whistleblowers. Nor do I believe it’s a coincidence that the Justice Department decided to press ahead as Baker has spent more than a week viewing hundreds of hours of Capitol closed-circuit TV video and unearthing previously undisclosed details about the events of January 6.

What else did Baker's attorneys say?

Baker's attorneys in their news release expressed concern about what might be coming from the federal government.

"We now have information that Steve’s reporting has so agitated officials in multiple federal agencies that an effort is now underway to find a basis to charge Steve with more serious crimes and to use those more serious crimes as a pretext for early morning raids to execute search and arrest warrants on him and his family," his attorneys said.

More from the news release:

If this is true, and search and arrest warrants are used to drag Steve out of his house in the early morning hours someday soon, that will be evidence of retaliation against a journalist exercising his First Amendment rights to report information that is embarrassing to government officials.

This will be ANOTHER breaking of institutional norms by the Department of Justice. Among the undersigned counsel are former prosecutors with the Department of Justice — each having served for more than 20 years — who have witnessed the breaking of other norms of DOJ policy and procedure over the past three years, such as using arrest warrants and SWAT raids to apprehend persons charged with only misdemeanor offenses.

Now a journalist reporting facts embarrassing the government is being targeted for prosecution. There were dozens of members of the media working for various organizations — as well as numerous independent freelance journalists like Steve — present at the Capitol on January 6. Many went inside the Capitol building to capture what was happening there. We have been compiling a list of all such journalists over the past several months. We will be calling upon those journalists and their employers to publicly stand in favor of the First Amendment and denounce any effort by the Department of Justice to prosecute Steve.

The Justice Department on Monday didn't immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment on the news release from Baker's attorneys.

What's the background?

Baker discussed his Jan. 6 legal saga in a pair of October commentary pieces for Blaze News (here and here). In them, Baker said he'd been under federal investigation for the better part of two years following his independent journalistic work on Jan. 6, which began before he joined Blaze News.

From Baker's first commentary:

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.

After the FBI made initial contact with Baker in July 2021, Baker said he and his attorney met in person with FBI Special Agents Gerrit Doss and Craig Noyes in North Carolina on Oct. 18, 2021. At the conclusion of the interview, Baker said he and his attorney volunteered to turn over Baker's Jan. 6 videos, but nothing came of that.

Baker said his attorney got a Nov. 17, 2021, email from assistant U.S. attorney Anita Eve saying that Baker could expect to be "charged within the week" — and that the charges would be interstate racketeering and property damage, which Baker said were bogus. With that, Baker said he and his attorney informed the media that he — an independent journalist — was being prosecuted for his coverage of Jan. 6.

Baker noted that Eve was forwarded a copy of that news release and told his attorney that she was "not thrilled" with it. Baker's attorney replied, “Mr. Baker is obviously feeling threatened by the charges and is using his First Amendment right to garner support. ... Are you suggesting that he refrain from making further statements? ... He has nothing to hide. But he does have a right to speak truthfully about his experiences and share his opinions. ... It’s not fair to ask him to be silent while he endures federal prosecution.” Baker's attorney again volunteered to turn over his Jan. 6 videos.

Despite the threat of charges "within the week," Baker said he didn't hear from Eve's office for nearly two years — and in August 2023, his attorney accepted service of a grand jury subpoena, signed by Eve, for all the Jan. 6 videos Baker personally recorded.

Baker wrote in his second commentary that "grand juries generally are not convened for misdemeanor offenses but rather for felony charges." Curiously renewed interest from the Justice Department coincided perfectly with his discussions with Blaze News to become a contributing investigative journalist and columnist.

As Baker told Blaze News last month, he'd been "poking the bear rather aggressively."

Later that same August, Baker and his attorney delivered a flash drive containing his videos to FBI Special Agent Noyes.

Baker concluded his second commentary with the following promise: "The truth is, my life hasn’t been destroyed. Yet. But many others have been. I intend to show through my investigations that many lives have been destroyed for no good reason — and that cannot stand."

What has been uncovered as a result of Baker's investigations?

Baker's first Jan. 6 analysis for Blaze News came last October, following countless hours in a House subcommittee office looking at frame after frame of Jan. 6 closed-circuit video — and it had him wondering: Did Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus perjure himself in the Oath Keepers trial?

Soon after, the slow pace of getting an unrestricted look at everything recorded on video prompted Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson's appeal to House Speaker Mike Johnson to release all the videos. On Nov. 17, Johnson did just that.

Baker's investigative efforts also resulted in two additional analyses, both focusing on Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn: "January 6 and the N-word that wasn't" and "Harry Dunn's account of January 6 does not add up. At all."

In December, Baker alleged he uncovered major irregularities involving Dunn, Capitol Police, the press, and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland).

Last week, Baker asserted that just-released U.S. Capitol closed-circuit TV video clips from Jan. 6 show Lazarus gave false testimony in the Oath Keepers trial.

Proof of Perjury | The Truth About January 6youtu.be

Also last week, Baker added another analysis revealing that the individual who discovered a pipe bomb at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021 — previously called a "passerby" — actually was a United States Capitol Police plainclothes officer.

Anything else?

Baker's attorneys concluding their news release by asking the Justice Department, "If you are so convinced in the strength of your case against Steve Baker that you file charges against him in the District Court for the District of Columbia, we invite you to join in a stipulation with the defense to have Steve’s case tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina or the Northern District of Texas."

They also wondered, "Are citizens of those two districts not suitable for jurors in Steve’s case? Is the federal judiciary in those two districts not able to provide a fair and impartial trial? On what basis does the United States Department of Justice believe the 'United States' can only get a fair trial in the District of Columbia and not one of those 'United' States?"

As for Baker, he noted in the release that he won't be bullied into silence.

"I will not be intimidated," he said. "I will continue to report the findings of my investigation into the evidence being made available to me to review. I have followed and reported on dozens of trials of January 6 defendants, and the more I investigate, the greater is my unease at what is being done in the name of 'justice.'"

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