(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker announced Thursday that he’s expecting to be charged for entering the Capitol to document events during the Jan. 6, 2021, protest-turned-riot.
“I have to self-surrender on Tuesday. Charges are yet unknown,” he said. “Stay tuned for more information to follow this afternoon.”
Baker has been on the forefront of exposing anomalies and likely government malfeasance on Jan. 6. Most recently, he reported that a Capitol Police Special Agent gave false testimony at the Oath Keepers’ sedition trial last year.
Baker is now at least the second reporter to be charged for—by all accounts—purely journalistic activities. He joins Stephen Horn, who was convicted of four misdemeanor charges in September for entering the Capitol while filming the Jan. 6 protests/riots. Horn is set to be sentenced in January.
Headline USA understands there are more than 20 other reporters who, like Horn and Baker, entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, but aren’t facing charges. Headline USA reviewed some of their names, but is withholding them so they won’t be targeted, too.
Along with Horn and Baker, the DOJ also charged Infowars host Owen Shroyer with disorderly conduct and entering a restricted area of Capitol grounds.
In Shroyer’s case, he violated terms of a deferred prosecution agreement stemming from a December 2019 arrest for shouting during a House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing. Shroyer’s deferred prosecution agreement entailed him agreeing to do community service and follow certain conditions, such as not engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct on Capitol grounds.
While Shroyer may not have been prosecuted solely for his journalism, the DOJ nevertheless successfully pushed for a jail sentence for him—even though he never entered the Capitol. In doing so, DOJ prosecutors cited his First Amendment-protected activity as a reason to put him in jail.
“The First Amendment is no bar to the Court’s consideration of Shroyer’s words and actions at sentencing,” the DOJ argued.
Horn is set to be sentenced next month, while Shroyer recently got out of prison after serving most of his 60-day sentence.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
