The FBI under Joe Biden’s dumpster-fire presidency continues to exhibit shameless left-wing bias as a conservative journalist said he will soon face federal charges related to his coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion.
On Thursday, Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker revealed that he would face “unknown” charges from the Department of Justice related to his “journalistic efforts” at the Capitol almost three years ago.
“My attorney has just been notified by @FBI that I am going to be charged by @TheJusticeDept for my journalistic efforts on #Jan 6,” Baker wrote on X. “Charges are yet unknown.”
The FBI initially ordered the conservative reporter to turn himself in on Tuesday, he said.
🚨BREAKING🚨 My attorney has just been notified by @FBI that I am going to be charged by @TheJusticeDept for my journalistic efforts on #Jan6. I have to self-surrender on Tuesday. Charges are yet unknown. Stay tuned for more information to follow this afternoon.
— Steve Baker – TPC (@TPC4USA) December 14, 2023
However, on Saturday, Baker said his self-surrender deadline was abruptly postponed until “after Christmas.”
🚨Temporary Reprieve🚨
Just after 5pm yesterday my Raleigh attorney received a call from @FBI Special Agent Craig Noyes informing us that my self-surrender would be postponed until “after Christmas” and that @TheJusticeDept has assigned a new AUSA to my case. (Adam Dreher) Quite…
— Steve Baker – TPC (@TPC4USA) December 16, 2023
Baker spotlighted the dubious timing of the FBI’s latest directive.
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“They put me through this emotional rollercoaster exactly two years ago when [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Anita Eve informed my attorney that I’d be ‘charged within the week.’ Then, they went silent for 20 months,” the reporter wrote.
Let this sink in: A citizen journalist in the United States has been living under the threat of arrest and federal charges over his coverage of a one-day event that occurred three years ago.
I was one of about 60 journalists who followed the story into the Capitol on #Jan6 – independents and otherwise. None of those who submitted their stories and videos to the regime’s approved outlets have been charged. You do the math. https://t.co/lLqTKHRkbC
— Steve Baker – TPC (@TPC4USA) December 15, 2023
“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,” Blaze Media reported Thursday.
“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,” the conservative outlet said.
Baker has said that while he entered the Capitol with “about 60 other journalists,” he did not commit any crimes.
Yes . . . I entered the Capitol, like about 60 other journalists. Did no damage or parading or violence.
— Steve Baker – TPC (@TPC4USA) December 14, 2023
The conservative journalist said he does not understand why the FBI is threatening to charge him but not the other journalists covering the Capitol incursion.
What about the other 60 journalists who followed the story into restricted spaces that day?
— Steve Baker – TPC (@TPC4USA) December 15, 2023
He also declared that “I/we will not be silenced or hampered by this renewed attack against my work.”
In a Thursday post on X, Blaze Media editor-in-chief Matthew Peterson said this was “outrageous retaliation on the part of the federal government against a journalist.”
“[Baker] was an independent journalist on J6; he’s now investigating the events of that day for The Blaze. We must all rally and end this totalitarian madness,” he said.
This is outrageous retaliation on the part of the federal government against a journalist. @TPC4USA was an independent journalist on J6; he’s now investigating the events of that day for @theblaze.
We must all rally and end this totalitarian madness.https://t.co/WN22wYq0To https://t.co/xrrqQMdhy1
— Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) December 14, 2023
Peterson also linked the curious timing of the FBI’s surrender order to recent revelations of alleged perjury committed by Capitol Police officers to incriminate the Jan. 6 defendants.
“We recently published evidence that Capital Police officers committed perjury in the Oath Keepers trial and this is apparently the DOJ’s response,” Peterson wrote.
“When [Baker] got word he was being charged, he was in DC working on our investigation of the J6 footage.”
We recently published evidence that Capital Hill Police officers committed perjury in the Oath Keepers trial and this is apparently the DOJ’s response. When @TPC4USA got word he was being charged he was in DC working on our investigation of the J6 footage. @Weaponization…
— Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) December 14, 2023
The apparent harassment of a journalist whose investigative reports contradict the corporate media narrative about the Jan. 6 incursion suggests that free speech is under attack by the Biden administration.
Some liberal commentators have pushed the absurd suggestion that only “credentialed” journalists are allowed to cover news events.
In reality, anyone with a cellphone can be a citizen journalist — as we see every day when video clips of incidents filmed by everyday citizens go viral and are covered by media outlets around the world.
In this instance, why are the Biden DOJ and FBI threatening a reporter with unspecified federal charges related to an event three years ago?
The federal criminal justice system is supposed to be a nonpartisan apparatus whose mission is to keep the public safe.
Instead, it has metastasized into a weaponized arm of the Democratic Party that is targeting conservatives.
