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The internet is fired up about the arrest of Steve Baker, an investigative reporter for Glenn Beck’s news outlet, Blaze Media, who was taken into FBI custody on Friday, February 1, 2024, for his reporting of the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021.
In a post on X, Blaze media said Steve Baker was arrested for his January 6 reporting. Blaze also shared a video of the arrest that showed Baker restrained in handcuffs and escorted by two agents.
The arrest came a day after Baker appeared on the Glenn Beck podcast and said he was slated to turn himself in to the FBI on Friday morning in Dallas, Texas, according to the letters his attorneys had received from the FBI on a couple of occasions.
Steve Baker's arrest sparks fury on social media
According to NBC News, Steve Baker was accompanied by a camera crew from The Blaze when he surrendered on Friday morning.
The arrest was subsequently broadcast live outside the courthouse, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying:
"Free Press is dead in America when the government jails journalists who refuse to report the regime's political agenda and lies."
The arrest video, which has been viewed over a million times, has also trigerred a wave of backlash online.
According to NBC, Steve Baker, the former lead singer of a David Bowie tribute band Bull City Syndicate, entered the Capitol on January 6, and then licensed his footage to media outlets, allegedly leveraging it to secure a job as a writer for Glenn Beck's conservative media outlet, The Blaze.
According to his LinkedIn, Steve Baker, who describes himself as a “Journalist, Musician, Writer, Counter-Disinformationalist and Political Dissident,” has been working at Blaze for nine months.
Before working for Blaze, Baker, who is from North Carolina, was a full-time musician and was the founder of the SMB music group in 1990. He was also a Lead Trumpet/Vocalist for Bowie tribute band Bull City Syndicate from 2000 to early 2024.
Steve Baker explained in his podcast after January 6 that, as a full-time musician, he “found himself suddenly unemployed” during the Covid lockdowns in 2020. At the time, Baker reportedly decided to revisit a project he’d started a decade earlier, an online community known as “The Pragmatic Libertarian,” which was later rebranded as “The Pragmatic Constitutionalist.”
According to his LinkedIn, Steve Baker described himself as a Counter-Disinformationist in The Pragmatic Constitutionalist. The mission statement of the project said:
“Correcting bureaucratically-approved narratives and media disinformation.”
Steve Baker's role in the January 6 riot explored
According to NBC, Steve Baker went to the Capitol on January 6, claiming to be an independent journalist. According to an FBI Affidavit cited by the network, Baker who recorded himself approaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, allegedly showed him being sympathetic toward the mob who stormed the building. In the video, Baker was allegedly heard saying:
“Look out your windows...look what’s coming.”
He later added:
"They got Pelosi's office and, you know, it couldn't happen to a better deserving b*tch."
According to the affidavit, Steve Baker then allegedly expressed regret for not stealing the computers at the building. In another interview, Baker allegedly said he approved of people storming the Capitol.
"The only thing I regret is that I didn’t, like, steal their computers because God knows what I could’ve found on their computers if I’d done that.”
According to the FBI filing, Baker also stated:
“Do I approve of what happened today? I approve 100%."
Charges against Steve Baker
According to Newsweek, Steve Baker is facing charges of Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Ground, Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building, and Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.
Ahead of his arrest on Friday, Steve Baker, in a string of posts on X, alleged the FBI was out to humiliate him over his January 6 reporting. Baker said the FBI had asked him to arrive at the field office wearing “shorts and sandals,” the claim he repeated in Glenn Beck’s podcast, adding:
"I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to put on my suit and tie and walk in with my head up.”
Baker also alleged he was told that the FBI, who had asked him to self-surrender, had informed his attorneys they had no intention of detaining him, but allegedly felt the need to “give me a dose of the personal humiliation treatment,” by arresting him.
According to NBC, In a phone interview after his arrest, Baker, who called the process "humiliating," noted that law enforcement officers were friendly and cordial.
Baker explained his comments, alleging that his comment about Pelosi were taken out of context.
"With the 'couldn't happen to a nicer b----' comment... When the FBI asked me why I said that I said, 'Because it wasn't McConnell's office.' I said, 'If it had been McConnell's office, I would've said it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bastard.' And then I followed that up by saying, 'What part of me being a libertarian do you not understand? I don't like either side.'"
According to NBC, a former commentator for The Blaze, Elijah Schaffer, had posted on social media during the riot that he was inside Pelosi’s office on January 6 with thousands of other rioters. However, unlike Baker, Schaffer was not charged as he was wearing his press credentials at the time.
