Uncensored: Arrested for Exposing the J6 Myth

The January 6th election justice protest was a major news story, so it makes sense that droves of journalists traveled to Washington that day to cover it.

What doesn’t make sense, however, is the Biden Justice Department arresting some of those reporters for doing their jobs. But that’s exactly what’s happened. Like many of his colleagues, news writer Steve Baker was at the Capitol on January 6th to cover the event. Did he participate in the protest? No. But the FBI arrested him anyway.

Tucker [00:00:00] Among the many thousands of Americans who came to the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021 were an awful lot of journalists, working journalists, and they were there because, among other things, it was a news story in progress. So they went to what we call cover the story. And the overwhelming majority of them worked for various organs of state media The Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, and their job was to bolster whatever the people in charge claim is true. But there were also some independent journalists there that day. One of them was called Steve Baker. He now works for The Blaze, and he was there for the same reason. Everyone else is there to watch the protests play out and to cover it. And like so many reporters that day, he eventually moved with the crowd inside the Capitol building, and he did so peacefully to cover the story. We’re not guessing about this. He did not show up to break windows or poke anyone with a flagpole. He was there to cover it. As a journalist, we have footage of it of Baker in the Capitol. We’re going to put it up now. You can see he’s not rioting or attacking police. He’s standing there watching what’s happening around him, covering the story. But because Steve Baker wasn’t wise enough to get a job with The Washington Post or the New York Times or any other news outlet that works for the Biden administration, the FBI singled him out not as a reporter, which he is, but as an insurrectionist. And then they charged him with crimes for being there. The charges include disruptive conduct in restricted building, parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol building. And they meant it. They weren’t joking. And by the way, no one defended Steve Baker. None of the Free Press organizations that exist to defend working journalists stood up for him or said a word. When Baker was arrested at the FBI office in Dallas. Here’s video of Baker turning himself in. As you can see, he was humiliated. They cuffed him behind his back, not because he posed a threat to anyone, but because they wanted to make the message crystal clear to everyone else. Only regime media will be treated as legitimate. Others will be crushed. Steve Baker joins us now to recount his experiences with the so-called justice system. Steve Baker, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Steve Baker [00:02:19] Thank you for having me.

Tucker [00:02:20] Of course, when last we spoke about a year ago, there were hints this was coming. I’ll just speak for myself. As a middle aged American man, I didn’t really believe that they could arrest a journalist for covering a story. They did ultimately, as we just showed, arrest you. Were you as shocked as I was?

Steve Baker [00:02:41] Probably not as shocked because I had been dealing with this for about two and a half years. I initially had a threat of prosecution going all the way back to November of 21, when my attorney received a email from an assistant U.S. attorney out of Philadelphia in which she said, your client, meaning me with is going to be arrested or is going to be charged within the week. And so after we did a bit of a, a bit of a media push back, kind of an offensive against that threat, then we didn’t hear from them again for 20 months. Now, after 20 months, I was starting to feel pretty good about it. During that interim time, I actually spoke with you. And then, in August of last year, we received a grand jury subpoena. My attorney calls me back, says, all right, we’ve got a grand jury subpoena for your work, your actual videos that you took on January 6th. We complied, yet again. And, then we didn’t hear from them for another four months. Well, during this time, I’m now working for the blaze. And so I was actually in DC. As a matter of fact, I was sitting in, Representative Thomas Massie’s office on December 14th, just this past December. And, I get a text from my attorney, which is never a welcome thing, an unsolicited text from your attorney, which he said, I think this is the one, the big one. So I stepped out into the hallway there at the Rayburn Building and called my attorney, and he said, they want you to self surrender next week in my hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. So, the blaze went into high gear. We did another media offensive, had millions of views of this, the story that we were telling about me having to self surrender, and they backed off yet again. They we got another call the next day from the FBI saying that they were going to put that off until sometime after Christmas. Once again, we didn’t hear from them for two months until two weeks ago. We got the notice that I was going to have to self surrender this time, and this time it was for real. They actually said that it was only going to be for misdemeanor charges, the four basic misdemeanors that all the low level January 6th offenders get. And because I’m happened to be working here in Dallas right now, we’re Blaze’s headquarters, we decided to go ahead and do my self surrender here at the FBI field office. So they didn’t raid me. They didn’t come out to my hotel or to the Blaze Studios. We went down to the FBI field office and submitted myself. The interesting thing, Tucker, is that in the notice from the assistant U.S. attorney to my my lead attorney is that they wanted me to show up at the field office, and I quote, wearing. Shorts, t shirt and flip flops. And I knew what that meant. That meant that they were probably going to change me into the orange jumpsuit, and that I would then be leg shackled, because the plan was for the FBI to process me there at the the field office, put me in a car, take me downtown to the courthouse where they would hand me over to the U.S. marshals, and then I would wait in a cell until I was marched before the magistrate in front of the, the, in front of the whole court. And so what ended up taking place is that, my attorney negotiated with the two FBI agents in advance of me surrendering. I did not have to get into an orange jumpsuit. I showed up with a jacket, tie, slacks, dress shoes. They made me take off my shoelaces, my belt, my tie, and then hand my jacket over to my attorney. Then they took me. They allowed me to wear my own shirt. My own trousers. They handcuffed me, fingerprinted me, marched me up to the car which has been seen on camera, took me to they took me to the courthouse, handed me over to the U.S. marshals. And that’s where they put the leg chains. The belt, chain belt in my wrist, chained my wrist to my stomach and then sat me in a jail cell with a meth dealer.

Tucker [00:06:47] It’s hard to believe any of that is true. A couple of questions. One, what’s the name of the assistant U.S. attorney who did this?

Steve Baker [00:06:54] Adam Dreyer out of DC.

Tucker [00:06:57] Yeah. Adam Dreyer, I hope, becomes famous. It’s not a threat, but I think we deserve to know who is doing this. I mean, the state of Texas has more than a million, illegal invaders in it right now. And also an awful lot of murders in the state of Texas. And so this is what they’re spending their time doing. I have to ask, did any of the FBI agents we always hear the, you know, the line agents or good guys, any of the U.S. marshals say to you, you know, I’m embarrassed that I’m chaining you, to, you know, chaining you to your own stomach on a misdemeanor charge for something that isn’t actually a crime. Did anyone betray any acknowledgment that this is like all a farce.

Steve Baker [00:07:38] The two agents that processed me did not do that. I have received messages from retired whistleblowing. Yeah. Agents all over the country apologizing to me for the behavior of the, the once the agency they were once proud of. I will tell you that while they were patting me down and going through the process, I did chat with them, and I asked them point blank, I said, so how often do you do this to misdemeanor defendants? The first time there was a little bit of mumbling, and then I kind of reiterated, I said, is this is it normal or do you get do you do and process misdemeanor defendants on a regular basis? As they’re patting me down. They were they were dead silent. And of course, that’s because we know the answer, Tucker.

Tucker [00:08:24] How about how about speak up, son? I pay your salary. Like, how dare you treat me this way as an American citizen? Seriously.

Steve Baker [00:08:31] They didn’t answer that question. Yeah, and the hundred year reign in the 100 year history of that agency, 100 plus year history of that, they never processed misdemeanor defendants of any kind, particularly nonviolent misdemeanor defendants. It’s that’s not what they do. I mean, every single FBI agent will tell you that when they joined the, the agency, they were told that they were they were on this, planet in in this country to go after the whales, not the tiny little minnow.

Tucker [00:09:03] But why don’t they quit? That’s what I don’t understand. I mean, I I’ve always respected law enforcement on principle and FBI agents, I guess on principle. But if you’re participating in a system that’s just political tyranny, which is what it is, it’s not a there’s nothing justice related about any of this. It’s Joe Biden putting his critics behind bars. How can you live with yourself? Like isn’t at a certain point at their responsibility, too?

Steve Baker [00:09:28] I’ve been analyzing that the answer to that question for quite some time now, and the only answer I have is that we’re now into a generation of special agents and even special agents in charge that came in after the Patriot Act that came in during the Obama administration, that came in after the politicization was overwhelming at the top in the leadership. And in fact, now the you know, in most of the field offices, those in charge are our political operatives, by and large. Tucker. And so that’s the answer. Now, we’ll tell you this. When I got to the courthouse, one of the, U.S. marshals processing me down there, he actually looked at my paperwork and he said, point blank, this is bullshit. Yeah.

Tucker [00:10:21] And right I right, and good for him.

Steve Baker [00:10:23] Yeah. And I said, yeah. And then he said, and he said, I’ll tell you what else is bullshit. He said, we process a lot of these. He said, you guys, you know, you J Sixers. And he said, I think that, former President Trump should be paying for every one of your legal fees.

Tucker [00:10:38] I agree with that too. I do agree with that. Yeah. And I think it’s yeah, I strongly agree with that. So yeah, I mean, I think you should be afraid to behave like this if you’re an FBI agent. I think you should be afraid of it. You can act like that toward your fellow citizens, and you can’t be the instrument of political tyranny and get away with it. So did anyone. Is there anyone to appeal to? So you work with Glenn Beck, who is really taken up and good for him. He’s a good man. Your cause. But did anyone with official power step in to try and help you?

Steve Baker [00:11:13] No one with official power. I mean, we’ve had quite a few people speak out on my behalf. We’ve had some congressmen speak out on my behalf. We’ve had, current presidential, nominee, nominee apparent as well as those, a couple of others that were running, Ramaswamy, DeSantis. And then in addition to that, we’ve had a host of other friendly media. But as you can probably surmise, and as you obviously stated earlier, nobody from the mainstream media has come forward yet and said, hey, you know, we probably better stick up for this guy even though he’s not one of us, because pendulum swing, right? And more important, more importantly, Tucker, whether the pendulum swings or not, if it continues to swing far into the tyrannical left, they purged themselves eventually. If you’ve read a history book, they will take out the factions of the factions first.

Tucker [00:12:11] Yes, well, but such a thing is principle exists. I mean, some things are just wrong because they’re wrong. Racial discrimination. Putting people in prison because you don’t like their political views are just wrong. It doesn’t matter who they’re happening to. They’re just they’re just wrong, on their own terms. Did it ever did part of you think, well, maybe I just won’t participate. You know, I’ve spent my whole life in this country, pay taxes, believed in the system. This is not justice. This is not. The justice system. This is a tool of political repression. And maybe you just say, come and get me. I’m not, I’m not. Well, that’s playing along.

Steve Baker [00:12:45] Well for for two and a half years. Yeah, for two and a half years, I didn’t have to set my alarm clock, because every morning at 6:00, I would wake up because I’ve been following these cases. I’ve been following these trials. I followed hundreds of these cases. There’s over 1350 of these arrests so far. All manner of defendants for, January 6th. Most of them, of course, are nonviolent. And I’ve been following these cases. And believe it or not, many, I mean, far, far too many to even, recount of the simple misdemeanor, defendants, including other independent journalists, have been swat raided at their home. Some of them have been imprisoned and did nothing more than walk around in the capital with a big camera rig. No painting, parading, no picketing, no chanting, USA, USA or anything else of that nature. And, they they did their job professionally. And when they got back home, they were swat raided by 20 agents with the red dots on their chest and on their wife and on their children, and then hauled off, convicted, sent to prison for months. Independent journalist.

Tucker [00:13:55] It’s beyond that. So what happens next in your case?

Steve Baker [00:13:59] I have, in two days. I have a DC hearing. It’s one that I can do by zoom. It’s simply not much more than a repeat of what we did in Dallas, because this was an out of district hearing. So now I’ve got to do it before a DC magistrate. So it’s just basically the same thing without the leg chains this time. And then we start the process of our strategy, with my, with my legal team to determine how we’re going to proceed. And part of that process was learning who our judge was. And that’s pretty interesting. Revealing that to you for the first time, Judge Christopher Cooper is also the exact same judge who held, Catherine Herridge in contempt two weeks ago.

Tucker [00:14:39] Yeah, I’m very aware of that. It’s unbelievable. Steve Baker, I appreciate your taking the time to update us on what has happened to you. Again, it’s tyranny. I know you know that, but it’s shocking to see it. Good luck.

Steve Baker [00:14:53] Thank you. Tucker.

Tucker [00:14:54] Thank you.