Journalist Steve Baker Gets Christmas Reprieve on Arrest for Jan. 6 Charges

FBI’s postponing of surrender date is ‘quite a fast turnaround of events in less than 36 hours.’

Metropolitan Police Department Sgt. Frank Edwards fires a munition shell toward protesters on the west side of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Steve Baker/Special to The Epoch Times

Journalist Steve Baker says the FBI won’t require him to surrender to face Jan. 6 charges until after Christmas.

Baker, a columnist for TheBlaze, was told by his North Carolina attorney on Dec. 14 that the FBI had wanted him to self-surrender on Dec. 19.

He said he was told the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) would charge him with unspecified counts related to his time on U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.

After media coverage and outrage on social media, the FBI told Mr. Baker’s attorney that he was being given a reprieve.

“Just after 5 p.m. 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 the Justice Department has assigned a new AUSA [assistant U.S. attorney] to my case (Adam Dreher),” Mr. Baker wrote on X.

“Quite a fast turnaround of events in less than 36 hours.”

Mr. Baker told The Epoch Times that he did not know if the change in prosecutors would alter the DOJ’s decision on whether or not to proceed with charges.

The Epoch Times contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington for comment but has not yet received a reply.

Defense attorney William Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who has represented more than two dozen Jan. 6 defendants, said he will represent Mr. Baker if and when charges are filed.

He said defense attorney James Lee Bright of Dallas will be part of the defense team.

“This is DOJ—once again—choosing to single out conservative media members for treatment different from the rest of the media,” Mr. Shipley wrote on X.

“We expect some pointed battles early on issues involving the First Amendment and Steve’s recent work exposing factual ‘anomalies’ between Govt witness testimony and video evidence that has only recently become available.”

Mr. Baker took video inside and outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and licensed some of the footage to HBO and The New York Times.

Turned in Thumb Drive

His footage included an early clash when Metropolitan Police Department riot officers came onto the Capitol’s west plaza and started swinging clubs at protesters. He also filmed mortally wounded Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt as she was rushed from the building to a waiting rescue squad.

In August, Mr. Baker received a subpoena from the DOJ for all of the videos he shot on Jan. 6. He went in person to Washington D.C. to turn in a thumb drive.

Initially, no one at the DOJ had any idea about his case, he said. He eventually left the thumb drive with a DOJ official and returned to North Carolina.

At the time, he said, he thought the FBI might be looking to charge him with a process crime such as tampering with evidence. He noted that after Jan. 6, he cleaned up his video files by trimming extraneous footage—such as shots of his feet or the floor—that had no content value.

Mr. Baker said he believes his work covering the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is protected by the First Amendment. He said he didn’t damage property, encourage anyone to enter the building, or participate in chants or actions by protesters.

The more likely reason for threatened charges, he told The Epoch Times, is his recent coverage exposing potential perjured testimony by two U.S. Capitol Police officers in the first Oath Keepers trial in October 2022.