On the day his Jan. 6 trial was set to begin in Washington, D.C., Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker pleaded guilty to the four misdemeanor charges against him, saying he would not be put through the “shaming exercise” of a trial with a near-certain outcome.
“I made the decision specifically to avoid the shaming exercise of the trial,” Baker said outside the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse after his change-of-plea hearing on Tuesday. “I’ve watched enough of these trials, as you know, from the media room and in the courtrooms to know that that’s exactly what these are.”
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper set a sentencing hearing for March 6, 2025, but seemed to predict that it would be interdicted by a presidential pardon.
Baker, who covered the Jan. 6 protests and riots for his blog, the Pragmatic Constitutionalist, had intended to use a selective-prosecution defense because only politically conservative journalists have been prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice on Jan. 6 charges.
‘That doesn’t mean as part of a plea he has to say, “I intended to do this.”‘
However, Cooper walled him off from that defense and denied his request for evidence in discovery on the dozens of journalists who were not prosecuted for being at and inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Cooper likewise denied Baker’s last-minute motion to postpone the trial due to the re-election of former President Donald J. Trump and the likelihood of Jan. 6 pardons.
Baker said he originally planned to take his case to trial, but the hard-line stance taken by Judge Cooper at his Nov. 6 pretrial hearing convinced him that a trial was not worth it.
“It is really a risk I was willing to take, but after the election last Tuesday and then after my pretrial hearing last Wednesday, which was the very next day, I realized right then and there that the court’s inflexibility was going to persist through a trial,” Baker said. “I said, and that’s when I informed my attorneys, ‘I’m not doing it.’”
Baker expressed frustration at the lack of evidence in his case and the government’s reliance on statements he made after the protests to allege his so-called state of mind at the Capitol.
Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker was prevented from using a selective-prosecution defense by US District Judge Christopher Cooper.
US DOJ, Metropolitan Police Department, Capitol Police CCTV
“They make accusations that are not supported by the video that they provided to us in discovery,” Baker said. “At one point, [attorney Bill Shipley] called me up and said, ‘I think they’re trying to send a signal that they want you to go to trial and do this thing because the videos they’re sending show you doing nothing more than being a journalist in the building that day,’ which is exactly what I did.”
Defense attorney Bill Shipley said Baker’s change of plea is not tantamount to a confession.
“You don’t have to make a confession. We just have to acknowledge that there’s evidence that the government has that they will use to show intent, and we are not today contesting that evidence,” Shipley said. “But that doesn’t mean as part of a plea he has to say, ‘I intended to do this.’”
Baker has said he felt the DOJ was going after him for things he said on and after Jan. 6 and because his coverage as an independent journalist and later an investigative reporter for Blaze Media has caused the government embarrassment.
Baker said Judge Cooper lit into him for things he has written about District of Columbia judges and the DOJ, claiming he impugned the work of the criminal justice system.
“He then went into a long and passionate defense of how fair they have been,” Baker told Blaze News. “All of the judges, all of the courts have worked so hard to make sure all of the Jan. 6 defendants got a fair trial.”
Shipley said the defense gave prosecutors 61 names of journalists who entered the restricted space of the Capitol but were never charged with any crime. Baker said he has a longer list of more than 90 journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, bloggers, stringers, and freelancers who were at the Capitol.
Defense attorneys William Shipley (left) and Edward Tarpley Jr. appear with Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker at a press conference after Baker pleaded guilty to four Jan. 6 misdemeanors.Rebeka Zeljko/Blaze News
“There’s only been three or four of us who have been tried, charged, convicted, or pled guilty — and every one of us are voices on the right side of the political ledger,” Baker said.
Because there is not a “no contest” plea in federal criminal court and using an Alford plea requires approval of the attorney general, Baker ended up simply pleading guilty. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit to crimes charged but accepts being sentenced for them.
“I wasn’t going to get approval for anything like that [Alford plea],” Baker said. “And so the bottom line is that the mischaracterization of the statement of facts is what I’m talking about, and I pled guilty to their assertions today to avoid the shaming process of going through one of these trials because that’s exactly what they are. I have witnessed them because, as I said before, they lie.”
Baker said if President-elect Donald J. Trump follows through with his campaign pledge to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, “Then I’m very confident that I’m at the top of the list.”
Baker said Judge Cooper seemed to acknowledge that pardons will be forthcoming from the White House. The judge decided to give the monologue he usually reserves for sentencing hearings because, “It’s not likely I’m going to see you in March.’”
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Politics, Steve baker, J6
