Independent journalist Steve Baker says he was recently warned that his aggressive reporting and commentary about Jan. 6 have created growing ire at the U.S. Department of Justice that could lead to his prosecution for being at the Capitol on that fateful Wednesday in 2021.
Since Jan. 6, Baker, 62, of Raleigh, North Carolina, went through two hours of FBI questioning and faced the looming specter of being added to the list of now more than 1,000 Jan. 6 criminal-case defendants.
He said his recent coverage of Jan. 6 cases and pointed criticisms of the DOJ have once again painted a target on him.
“I got a call from another journalist who has a friendly source inside the Department of Justice there in D.C.,” Baker told The Epoch Times.
“He called me up and said—this is a paraphrase, but he said—‘Your friend in Raleigh, tell him to be careful. He has awakened a couple of people’s attention to his work, and they’re not happy about it at all.’”
The ominous early-morning heads-up got Baker’s attention.
“First of all, when you get a call at 6:30 in the morning from somebody relaying that message, they must have thought that was really important to get a hold of me,” he said. “So the impact of the timing of the delivery was significant.
“The journalist who gave me the information has a very large national audience and would be the kind of person who would have those types of sources,” Baker said. “…So I had to take it seriously.”
The Epoch Times asked the U.S. Department of Justice for comment on Baker’s contention but did not receive a response.
Documented Intense Scenes
Baker spent much of Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., capturing video for his news-and-commentary blog, The Pragmatic Constitutionalist. He had a front-row view of some intense scenes, including the initial bombardment of munitions aimed by police at the huge crowd on the Capitol’s west front.
