By Mike Huckabee
February 28, 2024
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“This time it’s really happening,” Steve Baker posted on X Tuesday.
Baker, who as an independent journalist covered the riot on January 6, 2021, was finally told last week --- after two and a half years --- that he would have to turn himself in to the FBI this week. (He had a false alarm late last year, but this time it’s for real.) Sure enough, Baker has just been notified that there’s now a signed arrest warrant and he’s supposed to surrender in Dallas this Friday.
The instructions are oddly specific. He’s supposed to surrender at 7AM, wearing “shorts and sandals” (?). He speculated Tuesday that he’ll be put through the “humiliation” of changing into an orange jumpsuit and being handcuffed. From that point, he’ll be transported to the Dallas courthouse to appear at a 10AM hearing before a federal magistrate. Probably in an orange jumpsuit, no doubt meant to provide a nice chilling effect to other independent journalists.
These are reportedly misdemeanor charges, so Baker had thought this might be a simple order to appear, but no --- instead they have chosen the full-out “arrest warrant” route.
The last time we updated this story, Baker didn’t even know what the charges against him would be. He STILL doesn’t know. Withholding the charges is, according to his attorney, a “really unusual” move. The attorney, James Lee Bright, said he’s hoping to get a copy of the complaint as early as possible Friday morning. Can you even imagine what it must be like to know you’re going to be indicted but not to know what for?
One thing they did tell Baker’s legal team: their client is not expected to be detained, so there’s no need to arrange bail. (Question: If that’s true, why won’t they let him wear his own street clothes to the arraignment? That doesn’t make any more sense than anything else about this case.)
As long as Baker is awaiting trial, he’ll face travel restrictions and almost certainly will not be allowed to travel to Washington DC, which, Baker said, “will have a deleterious impact on my work.” It’s also possible that there will be other restrictions: gag orders from talking about the case, restrictions or an outright ban on social media, and possibly orders to surrender electronic devices and firearms. “All unknowns,” Baker said.
Now working full-time for BLAZE NEWS as an investigative journalist, Baker said it will be a “relief” to get this step over with. At the same time, it’s weighing hard. “I’m not a depressive person, but I’m not happy about this,” he told THE BLAZE. “I have prayed, ‘Lord, let this cup pass from me,’ but apparently it’s not going to.”
Baker has been waiting a long time for that “knock on the door” from the FBI. For many months, things sort of went quiet. According to BLAZE MEDIA editor-in-chief Matthew Peterson, it was after that news outlet started working with him that the government “sprang back into action.” As we’ve reported, the FBI had talked to Baker in December about surrendering but then told him it could be put off till after the Christmas holidays. Wasn’t that thoughtful of our friends in law enforcement? But now the time has come.
BLAZE MEDIA will apparently be participating in Baker’s defense. “We will be showing the world footage from January 6 that shows Steve was clearly present that day as an independent journalist,” Peterson said. “Government retaliation such as this against journalists contradicts the very idea of a free press, the purpose of our form of government, and what once was the American way of life.”
It’s sad to have to say so, but with what we know about the politicization of the FBI and what is NOW the American way of life, it’s impossible not to wonder at the timing of Baker’s arrest. He had spent a great deal of time going through hours of recently-released security camera video of the area near the entrance to the DNC headquarters, where a “live” pipe bomb was “found” --- sorry for all these quotation marks, but they’re to make a point --- just minutes before the election certification process was scheduled to start, and had recently offered his findings.
Regular readers of this newsletter know all about this: the fact that the bomb was discovered by plainclothes law enforcement (what are the odds?); the odd casualness with which the Secret Service and Capitol Police received the report of a “live bomb,” even allowing passersby --- including children --- to walk right by it; the unexplained presence of Kamala Harris at the DNC when she was about to be certified as VP-elect at the Capitol building, and, perhaps most of all, the curious inability of a bomb-sniffing dog to sniff out a bomb supposedly sitting just a few feet away. All of this cast doubt on the official story.
Last October, Baker’s investigation also questioned something else: the testimony of Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus that led to the convictions of several Oath Keepers. Tediously examining January 6 closed-circuit video frame-by-frame, Baker found that Lazarus couldn’t possibly have been in the right place at the right time to have seen what he testified to. Presumably, these convictions are now being appealed on the basis of this finding.
Recall also Capitol Hill Police Officer Harry Dunn, who had insisted --- in very emotional testimony --- that rioters frequently yelled racial slurs at him that day. Baker’s review of all the video showed no evidence of this actually happening. (We can’t say conclusively that this didn’t happen even once, but the video surely would have picked something up if it had been going on repeatedly.) But in an update on Dunn, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Biden last year and appears to have a bright political future, running for Congress in Maryland with the endorsements of Congress members Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Bennie Thompson and Jasmine Crockett (Houston, TX). As you know, Bennie Thompson was the chairman of Nancy Pelosi’s J6 Kangaroo Kommittee.
As reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES, he claimed in an interview “that he believed he was the candidate best equipped to combat the right-wing movement loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.”
Schiff said in a statement, “Harry Dunn defended my life on January 6, and I’m proud to stand beside him and endorse him in his race to represent Maryland’s 3rd Congressional district. We need fighters like Harry in Congress, where he will continue to stand his ground, fight for accountability, and protect our democracy.” (Fun fact: every time Adam Schiff says, “Protect our democracy,” a Founding Father winces in his grave. Apparently, Democrats are now “protecting our democracy” by arresting journalists for exposing their lies.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/
This weekend, we’ll have an update on Baker’s arraignment and the charges he faces.
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