Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker has been arrested, arraigned, and handcuffed by the FBI on charges related to his reporting at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Glenn reveals the charges, as well as a segment of CCTV footage that House Republicans released to Blaze Media that suggests a different story. Plus, BlazeTV contributor Jill Savage gives an update from the Dallas, TX, courthouse.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: We welcome to the program now Jill savage.
She is a Blaze TV contributor.
And following this story, this is going to be breaking news all day. We don't believe anyone else will cover it. That's why it is so crucial that we cover it. And you spread the news. Or -- or honestly, America just goes down another road, that is unthinkable.
The FBI arrested a Blaze TV reporter. Jill, what do you know, so far.
JILL: Well, we know he will be in court at 10:00 a.m.
He's already self-surrendered at 7:00 a.m. this morning. They handcuffed him. And this is -- it's interesting, because we think there will be four misdemeanor charges.
Right? That's what they've told us so far.
We don't know that for a fact. He's not been told the charges up until this point.
Because they said, they were scared he would tweet out the charges.
Well, at some point, this will all become public record.
So they're also afraid. He is afraid, that it is three or four misdemeanors.
How many misdemeanors?
JILL: Four.
GLENN: Four misdemeanors. But he feels like they will use those four misdemeanors to -- as enticement. You just say you did wrong, otherwise we bump it up to a felony.
But for the life of me, I cannot understand what -- what even the misdemeanors are. You know, they were parading. What were some of the other ones that they charge people with?
He's not parading. He went as a journalist. And we have, and we'll show you in a few minutes. We just got in the middle of the night, from Barry Loudermilk's office and the Speaker of the House. Those two have just been amazing. They got all of the tape of Steve, reporting in the Capitol on January 6th.
And so we have all of the -- I think there might be a couple more minutes. I don't know.
We don't know how complete it is. But it's fairly complete of him in the Capitol that day, just reporting.
And our understanding is, from the Capitol, that there is no parading. There's nothing, but journalism, taking photographs.
Taking video. And reporting.
JILL: Yeah. Steve Baker is a Blaze media reporter now. But on the day of January 6th.
When he went into the Capitol building. He was an independent reporter. He said, he went in trying to document the day. He said, he didn't know what January 6th was going to turn into. He just followed the story where it went. He was outside with the crowd, and said, okay. A lot of people are going in the building, let me go see what's going on in there. And from that, they are now turning his life into hell. And you can see, that they are not just going out. And he said, they could have easily just said, an order to appear in front of the court today. But that's not what they did. They put an actual arrest warrant out for him. And Steve this weekend asked his lawyer, why are they doing this to me? And his lawyer looked at him and said, you know why they're doing this to you. You've poked them for three years.
That's the other point. They've been doing this to him for almost three years now.
In December of 2023, they said an arrest warrant would be imminent. They've been making him wait and wait for these charges to come down. He's just living his life, thinking, okay. What time is this going to happen to me?
GLENN: When you know people have been railroaded and if they didn't cooperate, they got 20 years, 20 years!
This is like a cancer diagnosis. Can you imagine, the doctor saying, you might have cancer. You might be fine.
Here. I'm going to give you the results of your test. They're imminent, any day now. And then you wait two and a half years.
That's -- they're making the process, the punishment. Because they don't have anything.
And so they're making -- they're setting an example by scaring everyone. And I swear to you, America. If you don't wake up on this one, if these reporters, if these journalists don't report this. May God have mercy on your soul! For what you've done to the republic. This is a journalist. That is being arrested. And you say nothing?
May God have mercy on your soul.
So they arrested him. Now, they told him to show up in shorts and sandals, right?
JILL: Right.
STU: Which you just can't picture -- told him, I can't picture you in flip-flops. He does not look like a man who has ever worn flip-flops in his entire life.
GLENN: No.
JILL: And theoretically, it's to make it easier just to put the orange jumpsuit on, and put the chains on. And go through, right? They want to make this as humiliating as possible. This is not just, here, let's do X, Y, and Z. Let's go through by the book. No. We want to humiliate you. That's why we're telling you, not what charges you're facing. But we're telling you to show up in shorts and flip-flops.
GLENN: So this is what is what happened about an hour ago. Do we have the video of Steve?
STU: Not wearing shorts and flip-flops notably?
GLENN: No. He went in a suit. And he's on his way to the FBI. There's first picture of him.
Do we have the video of him being handcuffed?
That's all we have right now. But he was -- I am told, I have not seen the video. I am told that he was -- he was leaned up against the car.
And then his face was pushed down on to the -- on to the hood.
STU: Come on.
GLENN: And he was handcuffed.
They're going to put leg irons on him, and an orange yomps.
Now, for four misdemeanors, why do you need leg irons?
JILL: It's all the humiliation game.
And that's exactly what -- everything is going back to. None of this needed to happen. The way that it is.
I hope that that is what people take away from today. None of this needed to happen this way.
It could have been an order to appear in front of the court. It didn't have to be duress. It didn't have to be an orange yomps. It didn't have to be with the chains.
But they're doing this for show.
STU: He told me yesterday, Glenn. That the fifth person to breach the Capitol building.
The fifth, was a New York Times journalist.
GLENN: Who went through the window.
STU: The window. The broken window. The fifth one.
Now, look, I am not at all advocating that the New York Times journalist who went in there, should be arrested. Should not.
Quite clearly, this is a story worth covering, and it's -- it's vitally important we have video that Steve took. Which, by the way, was then used by documentaries.
GLENN: HBO.
STU: By the House -- the -- whatever that counsel -- the committee was.
GLENN: The committee of clowns.
STU: The committee of clowns that went after everybody. They used his footage. And now they're going to arrest him for taking it. It's incomprehensible what they're doing.
GLENN: He said, there's a possibility that they get him on some sort of crossing state lines.
Because he crossed state lines and then sold the video. It's like, what?
What kind of law is that?
I've never even heard of that.
STU: These are the Commerce Clause for anything, as you know.
GLENN: Yeah. No. I know. I know. Okay. So you're on your way down to the courthouse, right?
JILL: Yes, I will be there today, reporting back with whatever comes out of the courthouse today.
GLENN: Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
JILL: Thanks, Glenn.
GLENN: I have done this job, since 1978.
I have never seen anything like this.
I believe, they left Steve alone, for two years. He was not a Blaze TV correspondent. They left him alone. They first contacted him, and they had nothing. Literally nothing.
He is a journalist, an independent journalist, when he was at the Capitol. He did not engage in anything.
The guy is a Libertarian. He wasn't for Trump. He wasn't for anybody. He was an independent journalist.
There are, I think, 60 journalists, that were on Capitol Hill that day. Now the federal government, as soon as he joined us. And started putting his stuff out, and it got eyeballs.
All of a sudden, they're after him.
And I don't think this is -- I mean, I know they need him to stop. Because he's the guy who has revealed everything.
We're getting down to the Kamala Harris stuff. He told me yesterday, some things that he's working on.
And he said, Glenn, there are other people, who know it.
Other people have my work, in case, I become suicidal, in jail.
He said, and he told me a story, I'm not going to tell you.
He told me a story, if he can prove this. I mean, it's game-changing.
This is the clip of him. Is this the clip of him in the Capitol, being handcuffed?
Here he is, the clip of him being handcuffed today if you're watching Blaze TV.
STU: Got to be kidding me.
GLENN: Look at that. Perp walk. This is the nicest, quietest, gentlest man I know.
STU: It's incredible.
GLENN: Unbelievable.
STU: Charges are as follows. Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. Now, that's one he's talked about. And he said, you know, look, I'm a journalist. And I know, even as a journalist, I --
GLENN: New York Times was there.
STU: -- I'm not allowed to be in these buildings, even if I'm covering these stories.
However, the fifth person, through a broken window, to enter the Capitol, was a New York Times journalist. And they are not being charged.
GLENN: And he didn't enter through a broken window. The other two -- three charges.
STU: Disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted HEP or grounds. Disorderly conduct in the Capitol building.
GLENN: Didn't happen.
STU: Parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
GLENN: Didn't happen.
So we are waiting now in front of the -- the justice building, if you can call it that. The courthouse, here in Dallas. One of our colleagues has been arrested today for January 6th. Could we just play the footage, that we got from the Capitol, last night?
There, I mean, look at this. He -- Steve is in this footage, this the Capitol from January 6th. He is up against the wall, right there. He's either writing or he's checking the pictures on his camera, to make sure he has the shots he wants.
STU: He's not even looking at what's going on at that point. He's writing.
GLENN: Yeah, he's not engaged in anything, other than writing and something.
And then soon, he's going to move around the crowd. And he's going to stand in a doorway, doing exactly the same thing, except taking pictures.
RIKKI: Doesn't look very disorderly to me.
STU: No. He's just texting or taking notes.
RIKKI: Not a lot of parading. His tripod is actually up against the wall.
GLENN: Have I seen all of this footage?
RIKKI: No, we've only got -- you heard the Congressman telling --
GLENN: No, no, no. Have you seen all 5 minutes of this -- it's boring as not.
RIKKI: Oh, yeah. It's very boring.
I could see why the FBI didn't want to look at this.
STU: I mean, this is not parading. He's not even engaged with the crowd. He's leaning against the wall, as the crowd passes by. And takes notes. We have seen him try to document the events that are going on.
But like people in front of him are cheering, waving their flags.
He's just leaning against the wall.
GLENN: Writing, writing.
And taking photographs and videos.
This is -- this is insane. But then again, this is -- this is not the only journalist. The other journalist that all other journalists seem to have turned their back on is Catherine Herridge.
She was at CBS, right?
She was just fired. She's been all over. She worked at ABC. NBC.
Fox. And she was at CBS. They just fired her.
And now, she is facing jail time. Because she won't reveal the source of a witness.
And that witness, that whistle blowed to her, was whistle-blowing on how there is an infiltration in our universities. From China.
And the government wants to know who her source was. And so they're putting her in jail.
What a surprise, it has something to do with China, hmm?
So that's two journalists in jail today. Rikki, I'm sorry.
Jill Savage is down at the courthouse. And she's -- we're waiting for Steve to come out. But what is the situation, have you heard, Jill?
JILL: Yeah. I was just up in the room with Steve Baker as he was going through his arraignment. He was there with four -- four defendants, who walked in. Steve, it was nice enough that they were letting him wear his blue dress pants and dress shirts.
So the orange jumpsuit that we were talking about earlier on the show, Glenn, did not happen. But he was indeed shackled at his wrists and ankles.
Steve looked over at us, as he walked in to the courthouse, and definitely showed those -- those shackles there on his wrists and ankles. And, Steve, it is going to be known that he will be released some time today. They were asked that. The government lawyer said that that was fine. That that was going to be part of today's proceedings. And then he will be set to appear in court, in the District of Columbia, on March 14th, at 12:30 Eastern Standard. So that will be the next thing that we should look for, for Steve Baker.
GLENN: Do we know the judge?
Stu, in the charges, it was signed a District of Columbia judge.
We should look up the judge.
Is that the hanging judge?
I mean, he's going into territory now, where he -- good luck getting a fair trial.
JILL: Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that was one of the things that the lawyers definitely knew what they were getting in for today. We were able to speak to them just briefly before they went up into the courtroom. But that is now the unknown.
What happens when things do get into the District of Columbia on March 14th.
GLENN: Tell Steve that I talked to Alan Dershowitz today. And Alan is willing to get involved pro bono, to help him, for free speech cases.
This isn't the only one, unfortunately, that is now popping up.