Free Republic

When federal agents appear at the door, the most prudent response is to say, “Talk to my lawyer.” Just ask Zack Bonfilio. Local law enforcement and the FBI are using a new tactic: the “knock and talk.” Pairs of agents are appearing on Americans’ doorsteps unannounced, uninvited, and invariably without a warrant, with the aim of gaining access. For what exactly? Information. Visual surveillance. Property searches. And the Fourth Amendment’s protections against warrantless searches? Authorities don’t seem terribly concerned. According to the Rutherford Institute, “knock and talk” actions are initiated at private citizens’ homes without warning, often in the early...

Policy violations that ordinarily would lead to firings instead resulted in promotions for officers responsible for protecting top congressional leadership. Corruption is endemic at the highest levels of the United States Capitol Police, especially among the special agents and officers who serve in the department’s dignitary protection detail, a Blaze Media investigation has found. Internal discipline reports show a pattern of officers failing upward. Proven instances of fraud, forgery, theft, perjury, and drunk driving on duty going back to the late 1990s led to promotions rather than dismissals and prosecutions, discipline reports obtained by Blaze Media show. High-ranking USCP officials,...

Sic semper tyrannis — “Thus always to tyrants” — is the state motto of Virginia, which was my home for the first five years I served as an FBI special agent. Virginia is also the home to the FBI Academy at Quantico. I don’t know if it is poetic or ironic that this motto adorns the flags flying over the land where new agents accept their badges, their duty weapons, and their credentials identifying them as special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That is usually a proud moment for what my fellow FBI whistleblower Steve Friend calls a...

We are all Steve Baker now, writes a longtime personal friend of Baker's, who, along with Baker, has contributed to American Thinker. As many of you know by now, The Blaze’s journalist Steve Baker was arrested yesterday by the FBI, put in handcuffs, leg irons, and paraded before a magistrate who read off charges of ... wait for it ... four misdemeanors. Four FRIGGIN misdemeanors. Charges, not convictions, mind you. Nonetheless: Leg irons. Handcuffs. Hours in a jail cell. The message is clear: you dare go against the government narrative, this could be you. All that was missing was the...

As part of its undeclared role as a mouthpiece for President Biden and his administration, NBC News is trying to whitewash the FBI’s arrest of a Blaze Media reporter for covering the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol. After the FBI informed him early last week of its warrant for his arrest, Blaze investigative reporter Steve Baker surrendered himself to federal authorities in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, and was charged on four counts related to his coverage of the Jan. 6 riot. As The Federalist previously reported, Baker has been at the forefront of counter-narrative reporting on the...

Blaze Media Investigative Journalist @TPC4USA has now been taken into FBI custody for his J6 reporting. PERP WALKED IN FRONT OF CAMERAS LIKE IN A BANANA REPUBLIC................ VIDEO AT LINK.......................

UPDATE: 1:56 p.m. ET: Baker has been released: UPDATE: 1:16 p.m. ET: Investigative journalist Lara Logan had the following to say about Baker's treatment Friday: UPDATE: 1:05 p.m. ET: What happened to Baker got the attention of Donald Trump, Jr. as well: UPDATE: 12:51 p.m. ET: Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy weighed in on Baker's arrest and the state of freedom of the press: UPDATE: 12:37 p.m. ET: BlazeTV contributor Jill Savage noted that she exited the courtroom with Baker who "was able to wear his dress clothes but had shackles on his wrists and ankles. He is expected...

[Screenshot/The Blaze] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FBI agents escorted a handcuffed Steve Baker, an investigative reporter at The Blaze, over his reporting on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The FBI issued a signed arrest warrant ordering Baker to self-surrender Friday to a Dallas courthouse relating to his presence at the riot, according to Baker’s Twitter thread from Tuesday. He worked as an independent journalist at the time and said he did not commit any property damage and only entered the U.S. Capitol building after the Senate and House were evacuated, according to Baker’s Oct. 2, 2023 piece on the matter. Two agents...

The Blaze journalist Steve Baker cuffed and taken into FBI custody allegedly for his reporting on J6. Baker previously said he didn’t know what the charges were against him but was told they were non-violent misdemeanors

Nearly three years after the January 6, 2021 fedsurrection, Blaze reporter Steve Baker reported in December that he will be charged for his actions that day reporting live on the event. Steve wrote in October 2023 that he was under investigation for the past two years by Chris Wray’s FBI for reporting at the historic protests in Washington DC. Steve Baker detailed his experiences that day in an earlier report. Then, in February 2021, he began questioning the role others may have played in the protests and rioting that day. This was clearly off limits. ..... Snip..... Steve Baker announced...

Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker said the FBI wants him to self-surrender to the agency Friday morning in Dallas over his January 6 reporting. What are the details? Baker told Blaze News he's been instructed to turn himself in at the agency's field office at 7 a.m. wearing "shorts and sandals" — which he said signals that the plan likely is to go for "humiliation" and place him in an orange jumpsuit, handcuff him, and do the "prisoner transport routine." He added that after he's taken to the Dallas courthouse, he'll appear at a 10 a.m. hearing before a...

BREAKING: DOJ asks Steve Baker ( @TPC4USA ) to turn himself in next week to face misdemeanor charges for covering J6 as an independent journalist

Outrageous BREAKING: DOJ asks Steve Baker (@TPC4USA) to turn himself in next week to face misdemeanor charges for covering J6 as an independent journalist Baker responds: Game on. Baker should be able to make a good showing of a selective and vindictive prosecution. Steve has been covering the J6 riots and subsequent federal coverup in meticulous detail.

Just-released U.S. Capitol closed-circuit TV video clips from Jan. 6, 2021, show Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus gave false testimony in the Oath Keepers trial, Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker reported. What's the background? Baker penned an analysis in October calling into question Lazarus' testimony — which helped convict the Oath Keepers — noting that time-stamped CCTV videos Blaze News observed show Lazarus in other parts of the Capitol complex at the time he said he witnessed now-former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn interacting with Oath Keepers on Jan. 6. Baker and others could view the Jan. 6...

Journalist Steve Baker of Blaze Media, who captured some of the most dramatic news footage at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been ordered to surrender to federal authorities on Dec. 19 on as-yet-unknown charges.Paramedics from the D.C. Fire and EMS Department perform CPR on protester Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by police near the Speaker's Lobby on Jan. 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Steve Baker)Mr. Baker, whose Jan. 6 videos and photos have appeared on HBO and the BBC, as well as in The New York Times and The Epoch Times, told his followers on X, formerly known...

Blaze Media investigative journalist Steve Baker on Thursday said the U.S. Department of Justice will be charging him for his Jan. 6 reporting. "My attorney has just been notified by @FBI that I am going to be charged by @TheJusticeDept for my journalistic efforts on #Jan6," Baker wrote Thursday on X. "I have to self-surrender on Tuesday. Charges are yet unknown. Stay tuned for more information to follow this afternoon." What are the details? Baker on Thursday told Blaze Media that FBI Special Agent Craig Noyes contacted his attorney in North Carolina and that Noyes said he doesn't know what...

U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) has released video images from Jan. 6, 2021, showing the movements of a Capitol Police officer who Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker said appears to have given false testimony regarding his whereabouts that day during a key encounter with members of the Oath Keepers. Loudermilk, chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, said in a statement to Baker that he released the still frames — from closed-circuit TV video with timestamps — of U.S. Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus because "an allegation of a Capitol Police officer lying under oath...

The Capitol Police officer assigned to the protective detail of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on January 6, 2021, appears to have given false testimony about his whereabouts during a key encounter with members of the Oath Keepers, according to an examination of Capitol closed-circuit TV video obtained by Blaze Media. One of the most important federal trials in America in 2022 was barely a blip on the average U.S. citizen’s radar. The first of three January 6 trials bringing seditious conspiracy charges against members of a quasi-militia group known as the Oath Keepers began in late September and concluded...

Tory MP Steve Baker today accused Boris Johnson of 'creating a miserable dystopia' by re-imposing coronavirus restrictions as the Prime Minister braces for a massive Conservative revolt over 'Plan B'. Mr Baker lashed out at Mr Johnson and claimed 'at least' 60 Tory MPs will vote against the Government on Tuesday when they are asked to rubber-stamp the PM's latest Covid curbs. If such a rebellion does materialise it would be the largest suffered by Mr Johnson during his premiership. However, the PM's crackdown will almost certainly be agreed by the House of Commons after Sir Keir Starmer confirmed the...

TRENTON — Conservative activist James O'Keefe has released a video — titled "Teachers unions gone wild" — claiming to show undercover footage from a New Jersey Education Association leadership conference at the East Brunswick Hilton hotel. The video shows people identified as teachers playing arcade games on "their dime," chanting about kicking Gov. Chris Christie "in the toolbox," and talking about how hard it is to fire a tenured teacher. NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said O'Keefe is "completely and utterly discredited." "It’s James O’Keefe and that’s all you need to know," Baker said, citing O'Keefe's legal troubles in the past....