Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 965 | The January 6th Journalist Arrested for Exposing Truth | Guest: Steve Baker

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Today we're joined by Blaze Media investigative reporter Steve Baker to discuss his recent run-ins with the feds over his reporting on January 6. Steve details what has happened to him in the three years since his decision to report on the events at the Capitol on January 6, as well as his most condemning findings on the pipe bomb found outside the DNC headquarters and the alleged perjury of a Capitol Police officer. He explains what exactly he saw on January 6, why his actions aren't condemning at all, and why he believes the FBI is more interested in proving a point than enacting any form of justice. He explains his recent surrender to the FBI and the toll it took on him as well as how we can be praying for him. Watch the full footage referenced in the interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlXLvbk-6YY --- Timecodes: (02:00) Becoming a journalist / learning about J6 (12:01) Footage from J6 / what happened that day (25:08) First hints of legal trouble (33:40) Arrest & charges (36:00) Why the FBI is after Steve (49:00) Capitol Police perjury (51:38) DNC pipe bomb (54:28) The purpose of January 6th (01:10:42) Steve's response --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — Go to GoodRanchers.com and use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe to get a FREE Easter ham and $25 off any box! A'Del — go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 25% off your first order! Covenant Eyes — protect you and your family from the things you shouldn't be looking at online. Go to coveyes.com/ALLIE to try it FREE for 30 days! Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE" for a discount. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 547 | The Christian Nationalist Boogeyman https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000547708020 Ep 630 | January 6th: The Scary, Secret Truth | Guest: Julie Kelly https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000566554023 --- Links: The Blaze: "Why was Kamala Harris at the DNC, not the Capitol, on January 6?" https://www.theblaze.com/columns/analysis/why-was-kamala-harris-near-the-dnc-not-the-capitol-on-january-6 The Blaze: "Capitol Police diverted all CCTV cameras away from DNC pipe bomb investigation — except one" https://www.theblaze.com/columns/capitol-police-diverted-all-cctv-cameras-away-from-dnc-pipe-bomb-investigation-except-one The Blaze: "Revealed: A plainclothes Capitol cop found the DNC pipe bomb" https://www.theblaze.com/columns/analysis/revealed-a-plainclothes-capitol-cop-found-the-dnc-pipe-bomb The Blaze: "Analysis: Did Pelosi’s security chief perjure himself in Oath Keepers trial?" https://www.theblaze.com/columns/analysis/analysis-did-pelosis-security-chief-perjure-himself-in-oath-keepers-trial --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. January 6th, a day that will live in infamy for many reasons. Yes, there was unjustified violence and trespassing that occurred at the Capitol that day, but it also marks the beginning of a new era of justice in the United States. the kind that criminalizes peaceful protest, unacceptable beliefs and dissenting speech. With us today is Steve Baker, a journalist for the Blaze, who was there on January 6th, documenting

the events that unfolded that day, and who has since put together pieces of a really disturbing puzzle that puts the potential corruption of the DOJ, the FBI, and the Capitol Police in the spotlight. On March 1st, Steve was arraigned before a federal magistrate accused of crimes allegedly stemming from events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. And today, Steve is joining us to detail the humiliating ritual that he was forced to go through during that arraignment, the questions that he is still working to answer regarding January 6th, and also the effect that this has all had on his life, on his mind and his spirit. You will be left with many questions yourself, as well as many answers about what really happened that day. But I think

most of all, you will be impacted positively by Steve's courage. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Goode Ranchers. Go to Go to Goaderdrenchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. You've been doing a lot of interviews the past few days. Wow.

I've been keeping up with all of it. And I just, I appreciate you and the courage and the clarity that you have and talking about your story. So let's back up. Let's go to, first of all, why did you decide to become a full-time journalist? That's what I want to know. You know, it's a, let's just call it a late in life reinvention or maybe I'm just a late bloomer. I don't know.

You know, writing has always been an interest of mine. You know, my editors may not think so. They think I'm a good storyteller, but I write, differently than what's expected for a major publication, you know. Yeah. But my, I cut my teeth, you know, as even as a kid, my favorite thing was British literature. I just was consumed with that, that in science fiction. And so I've experimented myself telling stories like that over the years.

I've always been a full-time musician and a, or in the music business in some manner of the other. there's a artist management, concert promotions, etc., etc. Or as a performing musician. And so that has always had the captain's seat in my life. And the other was always a hobby. Then the internet came along. See, I was around when the internet came along. You weren't.

But it started out. We had this new format to exercise that other talents or gifts. those of us who like to write. So there's a lot of amateur writers that were stretching out with the advent of Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL. All of that became MySpace. I actually started my first blog using the MySpace platform and my first political blog. So I actually had my personal page. I had my band page.

I had my personal private musician performance page on MySpace. And I finally launched my political page. And I established that identity and started building a following there. Then, of course, by 2008 or something like that, pretty much everybody was leaving MySpace and all going to Facebook. And Facebook had their own blog platform called Notes back then. So I had the same thing, personal pages. I had three or four different bands. I had all my band pages.

And then I had my political page. And where I would do commentary, analysis, things of that nature. And as time went on, it began to grow, began to take root and, you know, it went from 1600 to 16,000 and then bigger than that, you know. And then you start adding on the other social media sites as well. So by the time COVID came around and the government took my actual job away from me because over those years, my hobby had become, basically my side hustle, the writing part of it, but music was still my primary source of income. And I had several streams of income during that time,

all dependent upon live performance. The bands that I was managing, my own bands. I had three bands of my own. All of that was taken away. And so I was suddenly put in a position where after two weeks to flatten the curve became two months, that I went, all right, I'm going to buy all the podcast stuff.

You know, so I did. And I bought, you know, all the gear. And then I, you're just a creative person. Always looking at, you need an outlet, which I can relate to. Yeah. And there certainly was that. And I made, actually made the decision. I announced to the tens of thousands of blog followers that I had that I was moving

this to the captain's seat of my life and I was going to move my career to the co-pilot seat because I had no idea how long this was it going to be. Two weeks, two months or two years to flatten the curve or if we were ever going to get it back again. If we would ever normalize or just descend into some dystopian nightmare, you know, at the end of this. I didn't know. But I had a lot to say about it. And so myself and another friend of mine, actually a colleague, a very close friend of 30 years and a very great writer who's written for some big names, both as ghost writer and doing other things. He and I decided to actually work on a COVID book together,

and he was going to do more of the political side of that. I was going to cover the hard, you know, nuts and bolts, investigative side of that, get into the, you know, the nitty-gritty. And we began working on that in earn. And one of the things that I decided to do during this time was because I have that, and I have this investigative instinct that I got from my dad, who was a private investigator. That's a whole other long story. Yeah.

And I used to work for him when I wasn't traveling with bands. I would, you know, I would work with him and his operation. And so I began to travel all over the country during the lockdowns. I actually traveled to 28 states during the lockdowns to meet with, I was doing meetups with my blog followers. But obviously, I was asking questions. I wanted to know what their experiences were. I wanted to know how many people in their own life

had either been dramatically affected by COVID-19 if they had had family members or people that they were close to that died. So I'm collecting data for our story and for our book at the time. And one of those trips had been an extended two or three month trip, and I got home just in time. time for New Year's on what would be New Year's of 2021. All right.

So we've been locked down for, you know, 10 months effectively at this point. And President Trump had announced that there was something going to be happening, something wild happening on January 6th and that he would have, he would be speaking. And so my close friend who I was working on the COVID book with, who also lives in Raleigh, we decided to go up and cover the event for whatever it was, not knowing what it would become. So you really had no idea. No, no idea.

What it was. No, and I announced to my blog followers. I said, I was anticipating actually, because there had been this notion, I think it was first floated by Sidney Powell, one of Trump's lawyers, that they were going to unleash the Kraken. Remember that?

Yeah. And the Kraken never came. And so I'm thinking, okay, if it's going to come, it better come on January 6th, if at all, ever. Yeah. And I'm not a Trump supporter. Never was. And so this is, you know, I'm just an observer. You just want to know.

Yeah. I mean, I'm politically libertarian. I, in 2016, I voted for Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party. In 2020, I did vote for Trump. But I voted for him to block what I knew was coming from the Biden administration. Right. I was not going to waste my vote on that. And I decided, and I announced again on my blog that I was going to January 6th to see what was going to happen.

What's the cracking? So I took my camera, my tripod, my man on the street microphone, and all I intended to do was document whatever was said from the stage if there was something significant at all. and then to get people's impressions on the side of the street, you know, on the street corners and sidewalks as they were there. I had no idea how many people were going to be there. In my gut, I just, I had a feeling, because it was on a Wednesday, it was in winter in D.C. It was cold, 25 mile an hour wind.

I'm thinking, 30, 35,000 people. That's what I thought would be there. Right. I had no idea that hundreds of thousands of people on a work, day would show up. And in fact, standing in the Washington Monument lawn as I did 360 camera views of this overwhelming number. I've never been in a sea of so many people in my life. And I remember asking my friend, I said, do you think this many people are here on a work day, a Wednesday in the winter, because they've been displaced because of COVID?

or do you think that there's something else going on? Because it seems hard to believe, you know, depending upon where they came from in the country, it might take, this is a two-day commitment. You know, for myself, it was a two-day commitment.

I just lived four and a half hours away from D.C. And if you've had to fly across the country, it's almost a three-day commitment to do that. And he said, you know, he's looking around. He said, I don't know, it may be a combination of all that,

but it turned out, It was a combination of the frustration that people were feeling. And I'm not talking about just about the disputed election fraud claims and things of that nature. But people had been, they've had their lives disrupted. And this was, again, not something I anticipated, the powder keg that that was. And that's what started thing. Actually, the powder keg of the people's frustration didn't start this. there were provocateurs there to launch this.

And then when you can use mob mentality and you can fire them up, then you can create a scenario that they did eventually create, you know, later in the day. But we can get into that as much as you want to. Yeah, I want to play some footage, some of your footage from when you recorded in the Capitol. This is SOT 1. Okay, so this is footage. you can see you just, just filming there. And as this was happening, as you were going from the rally where President Trump made his comments and you noticed that people were going to the

Capitol, people were going, and what was going through your mind at the time? At that moment right there? Yeah. Well, there's a lot of things that led up to that moment that were surprising and unexpected, not only the violence and the blood, the, the, the, attacks on law enforcement that I saw coming from the other side, the illegal use of what they call less than lethal weapons to try and disperse with the crowd. They weren't just using them illegally. They were using them immorally, I mean, against their training. And so I'm documenting all of this before the crowd ever broke through up to the upper terrace and then eventually breached that door, none of which I saw. I was down documenting what was happening on the

Lower West Terrace. And then when hundreds of people started moving through this open door, I had no idea how that door was open or how it was breached. It's just it was open. Cops were now standing down. They were not inhibiting the flow of people going in whatsoever. I made the decision to document what was happening to follow the story where the story went, as I had done up to that point in the day, except this time the story. The story was, went inside the building. And you had a sense at this time that, wow, this is phenomenal. Like, not in a good way, but something is happening.

Yes. And really and truly, you don't, say, I'm not a riot chaser. I mean, there were young, you know, 20-something-year-old riot chasing journalists that do this all over the country. And they especially got good at it during the BLM riots of 2020. I don't do that. That's not my thing and I don't ever want to do that again. But, well, I shouldn't say but as a result of not having that experience, I was really in two frames of mind.

Get as much of this film as you can get because this is important and stay safe. I had to, I got, I had to avoid police launching pepper spray into the crowd with these big tanks of it. the high, you know, like super soakers. Right. And then and then and then the flashbang grenades that were being launched into the crowd, tear gas grenades that were being launched into the crowd. I got hit by one of them. It landed about three feet to my right.

Detnated, exploded, and the shrapnel from it hit me in the side of my knee. And I had a bruise there for six months. And but there were people that got hit in the head by those. People that were shot in the face by rubber bullets penetrated. they were it was a horrible use but these cops were scared too they didn't know and i in fact one of the stories that i wrote about the capital police is i tried to get the audience to understand from their perspective what they were seeing can you imagine you showed up as though it was just another day at work and no intel has been passed down to you from capital police

leadership, that's the interesting part of that story, is why were these frontline officers not informed about what was coming when they knew what was coming? Right. And so all of a sudden, these unprepared frontline officers, they're not looking at me standing there with a camera or the other cameraman or even the persons that were striking at them with sticks or flagpoles or whatever. They're looking over my shoulder and seeing tens of thousands of people at vans. dancing in their direction.

And they have no idea if these people are armed. They have no idea. And they literally, to a man or a woman, didn't know if they were going home that day. Right. They had no idea. Yeah. Many of those officers who I've interviewed, both unnamed and whistleblowing sources that we've brought in to help us develop our stories here at the Blaze, they called their wives and said, please tell my kids I love them. Yeah.

I don't know if I'm coming home. Yeah. But when you get up to the door itself, what was I thinking? Again, by then there's no violence. Okay, it's all calmed down and the police are standing off to the side. It's just this long, thick line of people going in the door. So the violence that you saw was outside the door. Correct.

And that was police trying to do everything they could to keep people from coming in. And then did it seem like the police just decided, all right, we're not going to be able to stop all these people from coming in. So I guess we're just going to let them, but people were just kind of trudging forward into the Capitol. Well, by our investigations, we now know exactly what happened because we have access to the Capitol Police Radiocoms. And we know that just right at 2 o'clock, give or take a couple of minutes, there was an actual pullback order. And they were afraid at that time that the building itself was going to be breached. So they issued a pullback, unfortunately, because of the crowd noise, the chanting, the singing, the singing, the explosions, all the things that were going on, a large number of those Capitol Police officers never heard those pullbacks. But the ones up in the Upper Terrace did. So they pulled back.

And that's why that line basically was easily breached at that point. And then these people could get to the door and start the process of busting out windows and jumping through the windows coming around and unlocking that first door, what they call the Northwest Senate wing door. And then once that door was breached and people were coming through the windows and that door, hundreds of people started flowing throughout the Capitol and opening doors all through the Capitol. And they facilitated the breach. The cops did not facilitate the breach, but they did do their best to de-escalate. We've seen pictures and photos and videos of them holding doors open. I can tell you authoritatively because I've had access to all this video. Cops never opened those doors for the protesters.

Protesters went through those first breaches, spread out through the building, opened six other doors. and then sometimes we would see cops holding the door open and even sometimes we can hear them on audio saying, I don't agree with this, but you guys, you know, please behave yourself, you know, as people are filing in. It was for their own safety, basically, that they de-escalated that rather than continuing the violent attempt to prevent people from coming in. Yeah. And that's a complicated scenario. But then once inside, I'm not witnessing any violence. Was there violence that did happen inside?

Yes. I never saw the violence happen inside. I was never in an area where that was taking place. I did witness some property damage. I actually documented on my own camera when they took the Speaker of the House signed down, Nancy Pelosi. They actually, I can see them not using a pole or a flagpole or something and knocking it off of the arched entryway into her hallway where her offices are. I see the, I capture the sign

falling and then they start breaking the sign into splinters and handing it out the pieces as souvenir. So I did see some of that. And as I said, I caught it on my own camera. The moment you asked me about in that video that you just showed, that was taken in the crypt. And this was a just, I mean, just hundreds of people piling in there. And it was, elbow to elbow and every single passageway hallway room that I got into my first endeavor was to get up and above the crowd so what you saw there was me getting up on a bench so I could document what was happening not participating not chanting not singing they were they sang the song the national anthem they chanted whose house our house stop to steal USA USA those were the three big chance of the day

and I would always get up above it, never joined in with any of that. And then you saw at the very end there, I'm actually leaning against the wall. This was right outside of the House of Representatives chamber. People were piling in trying to get in the door. They were trying to bust that door open to get inside. And by the way, there were still Congress members in there at the time that they were doing this that had not been evacuated yet. And so I didn't know that, but based on what I had already seen, what I had already witnessed, I felt like I needed to write some notes down.

I needed to get some texts out to people. And so I stopped, actually set my backpack and tripod and all that on the floor and leaned up against that wall for, I think it was four and a half, five minutes in something and took a bunch of notes, send a couple texts out. And then while I was doing that, Capitol Police released tear gas at that crowd there. and if you saw that video that we released yesterday morning, if you watch the whole thing, you can see suddenly that crowd almost disappears in that cloud of gas. And when the gas starts to disperse a little bit, you can see me going, where'd everybody go?

I was caught so off guard. And another thing that I learned, because I'm not a riot chasing reporter, is that when you are caught up, in an event like that, especially if you're not prepared for it, your mind and your memory is Swiss cheese afterwards. The things that I have seen from my own video, and then the things that I've seen once me and the Blaze team were able to go to the Capitol and harvest this Capitol CCTV video of me, I'm like, I don't even remember it. There's places that I went. I don't even remember being there.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I remember watching it as it was happening or at least shortly after it was happening on January 6, 2021 and just being spontaneously brought to tears because the things that I saw, I mean, it did at the very least look barbaric in case. And yes, some violence, some people obviously trying to shove their way into the Capitol, the, you know, the attempts by police to mitigate as much of the craziness as they possibly could. And it kind of just was a moment as a bystander of thinking, what in the world is happening to this country? Obviously, knowing, as you described it as a powder keg, there had been a lot of tension, a lot of questions, a lot of disappointment. And, a lot of distrust from the public.

And so it's not like it was all that surprising that something like that would happen, but to see it in front of your face, at least from the vantage point that I had, I mean, I thought, wow, this is the end of something. I don't know what or the beginning of something. But this does feel like a new stage. Now, I'm not sure if that was the correct assessment, but it has certainly created a new stage.

new era of American so-called justice. And that has also been appalling to me over the past couple of years. And you are included in that. Now you are in legal trouble for the reporting that you have done. So tell us a little bit about that. Well, the view from 30,000 feet is this, because this is a complicated journey and it's been over two and a half years. It's obviously been over three years since January 6, but it was in July of 2021, just six months later, that I got my first phone call from the FBI. Now, I had been expecting it at any time because not only were they arresting people that went in, but they were interviewing journalists. So when I got the first call, I'm not necessarily 100% sure that this is an investigation into me or if they want my

observations or if they want me to turn over my videos. I'm not 100%. But, but once my attorney started negotiating with the FBI as far as a dates, and we began to kind of get a sense that this was, they were actually looking at me for some reason. Then my interview actually took place in October of 21, with two FBI agents and my attorney. And then it was a month later, the week before Thanksgiving of 21,

my attorney got an email from an assistant U.S. attorney who said to him that his client would be charged within the week, meaning me. And it actually included a felony charge at the time. Wow. The felony charge was laughable, but nevertheless, scary. Yeah. They were going to charge me with interstate racketeering. Wow.

Now, nobody else in January 6th, there's been over 1,300 arrests so far in January 6 cases. Nobody's been charged with interstate racketeering. The only way that they could prove that or assert that was they were going to make an allegation that somehow I had, for it to be racketeering, I had to have foreknowledge that an illegal event was going to take a place, take place across state lines, and that I went there with the intent of profiting from the illegal event. Okay. Okay. The profit was from the licensing of my videos. Okay. Because HBO, New York Times, other, I actually had an agent. So there was, my videos were licensed.

Yeah. And I did make some money off of that, as is the norm with journalists. Right, right. So that was a big stretch. We were able to. So they said that you had to have known that something illegal was taking place. You did know that something was taking place. Yes.

But they claimed that you knew that it was illegal, that you crossed state lines to make money off of this illegal activity that you knew was going to happen. That was, that was the only way they could make that. Was your attorney shocked? We were laughing about that charge. We were laughing about it. They also, now the scene you showed is very interesting because it has something to do with that first threat of prosecution was in the crypt room when I got stood on a bench and stood up above the crowd. Who knows or who knew? I certainly didn't know to that.

But in the code of federal regulations, just the very act of standing on a piece of furniture. in a federal facility is a crime. A misdemeanor, it's property damage. Even though you don't damage the property, even though there's no damage whatsoever, the act itself is a misdemeanor offense. And they were going to charge me with that as well for that very scene that you just showed right there.

We were able to back them down. We did a media offensive back in the week of Thanksgiving. And for whatever reason, we have no idea. We didn't hear from them again for 20 months. They just went away. So a media offensive in that you shared your charges on social media and you made a big deal up. Yeah, we issued a press release about 200 media organizations, you know, newspapers, television, podcasts, radio, blah. You know, it was full on.

I was doing dozens of interviews again then about the threat. And then for whatever reason they decided I was too much of a pain in the butt or something. something and somebody took my file. That's the only thing we're, that's only, because we don't know. I'm conjecturing right now. I don't know what happened behind those closed doors or at the conference tables at DOJ when they were looking at my case. But we kind of feel like that they just said this guy's a, you know, a real pain. So at that time, they didn't charge you. They just told you this is what we are going to charge you with. And then they didn't after you made to be dealing. The exact quote to my attorney was, your client is going to be charged within the week. And then they

listed the charges. Right. And then we didn't hear from them for 20 months. So now we're into 2023, summer of 23, and I'm in negotiations with the blaze because they know what stories I'm working on. And I've been in negotiations with our editor-in-chief here for about a month. And then suddenly I get a grand jury subpoena for my videos, which we had all. offered cooperatively voluntarily to the FBI 20 months before. But they didn't take it then. So there's only two reasons.

Either this was, well, first of all, it was an unnecessary grand jury if they just wanted to see my video, grand jury subpoena. But grand juries, unfortunately, are not seated for misdemeanor offenses. Grand juries only investigate and look at felony offenders. So this was rather ominous. And the fact that they came out of nowhere after 20 months of silence, I kind of felt like after 20 months they had decided,

okay, we don't want to fight the fight of a First Amendment battle with a journalist. But it was very suspicious, the coincidental timing that right when I was in negotiations with the blaze to come on board as a correspondent, that suddenly I got a grand jury subpoena. Yeah. And that's what happened. And then again, through my attorney, we voluntarily or cooperatively, I should say, complied with the subpoena. We handed over all my video.

And then we didn't hear from them for another four months. Then they popped up again in December, a week before Christmas, saying that I needed to self-surrender in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I live, the next week. well, by now, I'm with Blaze, and the whole machine went into high gear. And within 24 hours, we backed them down again with the media offensive. Oh, by the media offensive. Just the press, the publicity, all of the shows, both the, you know, the Blaze TV shows and hosts, all the outside press that we did. By the close of business of the next day, they contacted me yet again and said,

said, okay, we're not going to do this until after Christmas sometime. And then we didn't hear from them for two more months. So the gap between not hearing from them was getting, you know, shorter and shorter. It was 20 months, and then it was four months, then it was two months until, as you know, about a week and a half ago, I got the notice that this was the big one and it's time. And we want you to self-surrender. And then they took the nearly unprecedented. incidented action of even though it was only they apparently couldn't impress upon the grand jury whatever felony they were wanting because they only got came back with misdemeanor so whatever felony the grand jury was looking at the grand jury must have said even a DC grand jury went

no don't think so yeah so they came back and told my attorney that it would only be misdemeanors but even though it's only misdemeanors, we want Mr. Baker to show up on Friday morning, March 1st, and I quote, T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Yeah. And that is for the purpose of humiliation.

What do they say the reason is for that? They didn't give a reason, but we knew what it was. First of all, it was obvious that it was to facilitate. I just assumed that they were going to put me an orange jumpsuit, I'd be able to easier just slip the jumpsuit over the, you know, that. I had already anticipated that there would be shackles and leg chains because they have done that

to other misdemeanor defendants in the J6 community. They've also done it to other independent journalists. Full, you know, orange prison jumpsuit and shackles and then march them in front of the magistrate that way for their arraignment. And this is four. This is literally, for standing on a piece of furniture texting for a few minutes. Although they did not charge me for that. They actually didn't. I got the same four basic misdemeanors that all the low-level January 6th defendants get. The first one is what I call the glorified trespassing charge, entering and staying in a restricted building.

The second two are actually redundant. They accuse you of abusive and loud speech inside of a restricted area and then inside the Capitol building. So they hit you with the same exact charge twice. And then the fourth one is the really absurd. It's called picketing and parading in a, you know, in a Capitol building. Obviously, I was not picketing or parading, which is why we rolled out this video yesterday to show that that we had harvested from the Capitol CCTV to show that I wasn't wearing any Trump paraphernalia. I wasn't wearing any political speech at all on my clothes, hat, scarf, jacket, nothing. And I certainly didn't carry a flag or I didn't chant.

None of the things that that charge applies to. But see, this is what the Department of Justice does. Is they specifically purposefully, and this is not just January 6th. They do this in other cases as well outside of that realm. But they always overcharge, egregiously overcharge for the purpose of scaring you into either a police. deal or a plea deal that accompanies you becoming a quote unquote cooperative witness against whoever you might have been there with. And so that's just modus operandi for the Department of Justice anyway. But with January 6 defendants, we've been able to watch the pattern as it develops

because we have had three years to watch this. And of course, because I've been covering many of these trials in many of these cases and I've read hundreds of these charging documents, I pretty well knew what was coming my way. But what we did not, for which I will never forgive them, and for which we will go after them with great guns legally. I have to say that. You have to clarify, you know, and I say go after somebody with great guns nowadays. The, this notion that they punished me in the manner they did by the humiliation tactics, there was no doubt that they were, in fact, retaliating against me for the stories that we've developed and that I have been rolling out here since being at the blaze, as well as things that I did before I was here.

I've been poached, I asked my attorney, why are they doing this to me? And he said, this is my lead attorney. And he's been with, he was 20 years, over 20 years, a federal prosecutor himself. He was an assistant U.S. attorney. And I said, Bill, why, why? are they doing this to me? He said, you know why. You've been poking them in the eyes for three years, and they're getting you back. So, rather than me getting just a simple order to appear on nonviolent misdemeanor charges, showing up in my suit and tie with my attorney and his suit and tie, and sitting in the gallery of the magistrate's courtroom, and waiting for my number to be called to go up and be arraigned for those four misdemeanor charges,

they chose to have me surrender to an actual arrest by the FBI at their field office, at which time they did not put me in the orange jumpsuit. They took my shoelaces. They took my tie. They took my belt and my jacket away from me. I was able to wear my shirt and my pants. And then... You didn't show up in the uniform that they wanted you to.

I did not. the flip flops and the shirt in the shorts. It was kind of your own way of protesting for your own dignity. That's it. I said, I'm not giving up my dignity for this. Yeah. And so I dressed as I deemed appropriate and with 100% support from all six of my attorneys and so doing. Two of my attorneys accompanied me.

Blaze accompanied me my editor-in-chief here camera crew reporters and others from outside of the blaze were there to cover and after I surrendered my belt

my shoelaces and my tie and my jacket I walked over I shook hands with the two FBI agents they took me inside did the search pat down fingerprinted me put handcuffs cuffs behind me, with my hands behind my back in the most uncomfortable position possible. They could have cuffed me in the front.

They didn't have to cuff me at all, but I guess I suppose once you're there and you're in the situation, that's what they have to do. And then they marched me out for my perk walk in front of the cameras and took me to a car where they transported me then to the courthouse, the federal courthouse, and handed me over to the U.S. Marshals. and it was the U.S. Marshals who then put me in leg chains, belly chains with my wrists cuffed to my belly and my shackles on my ankles, and then put me in a cage with a meth dealer. Wow. And so where I sat for a couple of hours before my hearing began, and then they did the most humiliating thing they could have done is in front of my colleagues and friends that were the same.

there and my attorneys, they marched me in with felony defendants, one in the jumpsuit, drug dealers, and marched me in with them in leg chains. Wow. Then what happened from there? I was first up. So I went up and went through the legal proceeding. You know, it's all pretty template stuff at that point. There was no motion from the government to detain me.

They could have. They've done it before. So there was no request from the federal government to have me sit out either the weekend or just be permanently detained pretrial. So once all of that was established, they took me back out again. And it took me back to my cage. And then it got interesting because by now the U.S. Marshals knew. I wasn't supposed to be there.

And the U.S. Marshal that took me back upstairs, he said, he goes, let me get you a cell by yourself. And he did. So he took me over a little further away, got me a private cell by myself, so I didn't have to be holed up with drug dealers again. Right. And then I had to wait a few minutes for some paperwork to come up from the court. Then he took me back into the process.

processing room where they did electronic fingerprints, the mugshots, all of that. And I will not use the language he used on your show, but he looked at the paperwork and then he looked at me and he said, this is BS. Of course, he said the full word. And I said, yeah, it kind of is. He says, and you want to know what is even bigger BS. I said, what's that? He said, the fact that Trump is not paying for all of you guys legal fees. He said, you cannot believe how many of you guys I've had to process through this thing. And so they finished up that. I had to go back to sit in the cell for a few more minutes. And then finally, they had all the paperwork they needed to release me. And they let me go, took the chains off, took me downstairs.

And it was a world, it's been a world one since then. You know, I walked straight across the street from the courthouse right onto a live TV show. And it's been that way ever since. So your lawyer noted the disparate treatment that you have gotten versus other journalists. There was a freelance journalist who published a lengthy story about January 6th, just a few days after it happened. And he was nominated for a Pulitzer. Right. I don't think you have been quite yet.

So why is that specifically? You mentioned you've been poking them in the eye for three years. What exactly does that mean? I got really, well, obviously, after being at the event on January 6th, I'm now curious about all things related. I've not devoted to it in the manner that I have been in recent months, or especially for the last year and a half. I wasn't even as devoted to it even after my initial threat of being charged.

What happened was, is that I was still working on my, you know, COVID book with my co-author, which, by the way, you know, January 6th kicked the chair out from under that project. But as my curiosity about the cases, and I began to see what the Justice Department was doing in doing to other people things in a manner, that they had never done before in the history of American jurisprudence. Like, for instance, the FBI, in their 100-plus-year history, never investigated misdemeanor cases.

Never. It's not what they do. Kyle Serfin wrote a great article op-ed for the blaze in which he said, you know, he said, when I got hired by the FBI and became an agent, he said, we don't deal with the small we go after the whales. And he said suddenly, January 6th, we're not only being tasked to go after nonviolent misdemeanor grandmothers or young couples or whoever that took a selfie inside the Capitol and were in there for 10 minutes, but they're requiring us now to swat them at 6.30 in the

morning with guns up on nonviolent misdemeanor. It's something we've never done in the history of this agency. Everything changed January 6th. Not only that, but more egregiously, in the grand scheme of things, they're pulling these agents off of real crimes. They're specifically, FBI whistleblower Steve Friend, taken off of child trafficking cases to go arrest grandmothers that took a selfie in the Capitol and maybe chanted the three horror words of all, USA, USA, USA. And he said, I'm not doing that. Not only is this against everything that we're supposed to be. We're violating our own handbook in doing so.

And he became a whistleblower. And of course, not only him, but many others. And so you then go to the Department of Justice itself, which is the overriding agency above the FBI. And they're the ones sending down these instructions. And of course, the Department of Justice is they answer to the Biden administration. So this is coming from the top, the way they are treating. And as we've seen before, in so many other instances, it doesn't matter if they're targeting Catholic groups.

It doesn't matter if they're targeting abortion clinic protesters. It doesn't matter if they're targeting. Remember Merrick Garland famously issuing a threat against the parents. They're protesting at... school board meetings, literally calling them terrorists, domestic terrorists. Well, so this is what they have done. They've created an entire new class. So not only is your speech at a school board meeting make you a domestic terrorist, but now it's almost, it feels like there's this new class of misdemeanor terrorism related to January 6th. I mean, there is no such thing. There is no such law,

but that's the way they're treating us. That's the way they talk about. us. There are even judges who have let it slip in the courtroom in January 6 cases who have called them terrorists in their pretrial hearings. Right. Two of the stories that you're asserting kind of embarrassed, or the Blaze has asserted, embarrassed the DOJ had to do with oathkeepers and their perjury and then also the DNC pipe bomb. Yeah. So the consequences that you are detailing, the humiliation that you had to endure has come after these two stories where you are kind of poking holes in the official DOJ narrative of how things have gone. And your lawyer is asserting, yeah, they just didn't like that. And so they are retaliating for your journalism.

It doesn't really have to do with what you did on January 6th, which we all saw was just reporting. It has to do on the content of what you are reporting, right? That's exactly what it is. You know, obviously I have been following as much of the news and commentary about my case as I can. And one of the things that I've been most interested in is how many like legal affairs podcasts and writers are specifically talking about how almost blatantly obvious this is retaliation in their viewpoint because of the stories. that I've been working on. Because see, taken on its face, if we're talking about me having a assent, you know, as an investigator of potential perjury of a couple of federal officers in January 6 trials that resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of several people,

not only were we able to prove that conclusively by virtue of my access to the capital C.C. TV viewing room. That's just the surf. That's just what we see on top. You see, these officers didn't choose to perjure themselves on their own. These two officers didn't get together in a back hallway somewhere at the Capitol and make up a story. We have the evidence of how this story was put together and who put them up to it, which will be coming. And they know it's coming.

And our sources inside the DOJ said all the way back is early. as February of last year that they were terrified of what I was working on because they know this goes to the heart of them. These officers, these federal officers, one, a special agent on the dignitary protection detail for Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House. You think he decided to risk his entire career by going in front of a courtroom and a jury in D.C. and telling a story that was not only false, but one that could not have happened because what he claimed to have witnessed in the Capitol, he couldn't have seen.

He was in another building. And we found him on Capitol TV at that time. And this is Lazarus? David Lazarus, Special Agent David Lazarus. Yes. So when you find things like that, well, it rattles the cage of the people who put them up to these false testimonies.

Then you get to the pipe bomb and you start showing the actual cameras that would be used to document and aid in the investigation are being purposefully redirected away from the scene. We've now found three of them. I only revealed two in our video reveal. We've now found a third. Actually, Joe Hanniman from the Epic Times, he called me up all excited. He says, hey, I found a third camera turned away. you're kidding me.

So we now have three cameras turned away from this event. Allie, that's cover up. In case people don't know, two pipe bombs were said to have been discovered outside the RNC and D&C headquarters in D.C. on January 6th, 2021. So just in case people didn't know what you meant by pipe bomb.

Yes. And we found these cameras that were supposed to be locked on a crime scene. Somebody in the command. center six blocks away at the command center of the hat capital police were ordering those cameras turned off of that scene and this was a scene where when it began vice president elect camilla harris was in the building only feet away her motorcade drove 15 feet from the bomb itself and that raises so many other questions that we've asked in our video series um and so when we start asking questions, it's because we intend to find those answers. And again, the people

who know the answers don't want to be exposed. It raises a lot of questions about how this all originated and how it's been perpetuated over the past few years. And what is the ultimate goal? I mean, I can tell you, again, just as a bystander, the trickle-down effect for people in my audience is, well, you should never go to a protest, should never go to a rally, because you don't know what it's going to turn into. And you might think that you're an innocent participant exercising your First Amendment rights. Well, I'm never going to talk about the things that DOJ don't want me to talk about. I mean, it's just a way of intimidating you. I mean, I know that that is at least one effect, one chilling effect to all of this, that most people at the end of

the day are not willing to sacrifice their safety, their family, their livelihood to write about something, to poke the DOJ bear, or to even protest. I'm not defending the people who pushed their way into the Capitol, but it does send a message to the regular conservative American. You can be conservative. Don't speak up about it and don't ask questions that we don't want you to ask. Well, you're very perceptive because this is the ultimate effect, and it was the ultimate purpose of what happened on January 6 was that chilling effect to throw a wet blanket

over freedom of speech over the First Amendment to frighten all Americans away from using their right to bring their redress of grievances to the Capitol, but not just the Capitol. We mentioned earlier. School Board meetings, abortion clinics,

anywhere else. They're creating an entire class of domestic terrorists and the overriding evidence of this and I've reported on this and I've even gotten MSM

colleagues, we'll call them. Mainstream media. Mainstream media colleagues to admit to it in private to me. They'll never write about it because they won't be allowed to by their editorial staff

to say that when these people are convicted and then they're sentenced, if there was speech involved at all, that's what causes their sentencing to be more severe. And people that are living in D.C., these legal affairs journalists, that cover every one of these trials. I mean, they work literally out of the courthouse.

I don't work out of the courthouse in D.C. I have other things to do. but those who are there every day and cover all these trials, they have all said, yeah, yeah, you're right about that. Yeah. And so if you were just, if you were just a grandmother and you walked into the rotunda at the Capitol and took a selfie and you were in there for 10 minutes and you didn't chant or you didn't sing or you didn't wave a flag, then you came out, you got arrested. Maybe you got swatted. Maybe you don't. But the point being is, is that when you negotiate.

your plea deal, you get your two years probation, a $2,000 fine, 100 hours of community service, and then you get to go try to rebuild your life. Right. Because you lost your job. You got kicked out of your church. Whatever clubs you were in, they've disassociated from you. You're a pariah in your neighborhood. You no longer can pass anybody on the street when you're walking your dog and say hi anymore.

That's what they've turned you into. You are literally a domestic terrorist as portrayed by your local hometown newspaper and television. stations for taking a selfie in the rotunda. Okay? But if you're the same person and you walked into the rotunda and you took a couple selfies and you chanted and you sang and you waved your flag or maybe even worse when you got back home, you did a Facebook live and go ha ha ha ha jokingly, I stormed the Capitol yesterday. Oops, I hope you didn't say that.

Yeah. Because then you get, instead of two years probation, you get two months, six months, eight months, ten months, in prison. I think what a lot of people see, and yet it doesn't make it any more comfortable realizing the double standard. It actually just makes it even more chilling when you see that, okay, the DOJ is going to go after one kind of speech, one kind of so-called writing and not another. It's not just an attack on the First Amendment. It's not just an attack on free speech. That would be scary enough. It's scary that it's some kind of speech.

If you want to express your anger at the injustice of systemic racism and literally stage an insurrection in some ways and burn down buildings and say that you are a terrorist, basically, is what a lot of these left-wing extremist groups do, then probably nothing is going to happen to you, at least on a federal level, in many of these cases. I think the scary part is that it's some free speech, a very certain kind of category of free speech that is not allowed. That, to me, is the even more intimidating aspect of this. It's far worse. And we have multiple examples of that as well. Even among journalists, the first person arrested out of the Panhand will,

Florida. His name was J.D. or is J.D. Rivera. And he's a professional videographer, photojournalist, was under contract by a mainstream television station out of Mobile, right across the bay from Pensacola, Mobile, Alabama. He traveled up. He carried all of his expensive, you know, big bulky, expensive camera gear with him, all of that. He went through the exact same broken window that the freelance journalist for the New Yorker you mentioned while ago, Luke Mogulson went through. They basically paralleled each other through the Capitol doing their jobs. Luke was doing his job.

J.D. was doing his job. J.D. never chanted, never sang, never waved a flag. None of the, but behaved himself professionally as a journalist while he was in the building. He exited, drove home a couple of days later. He swatted for the four. basic misdemeanors by 25 agents with guns drawn on him, his wife, his children, and they had visiting family relatives. Now, what did he report that made him so dangerous to that? He hadn't even had a chance. This was in the very, very early days. They were afraid of what he

might have said. Might have seen. Might have caught, whatever. But this was what his crime was. It wasn't even that because he hadn't even had a chance to report anything yet. his crime was is that he had been an activist since the early days of the first Trump campaign in Latinos for Trump movement. So they did not arrest him, swat him, charge him for his journalism. They denied him the right to even present the fact that he was a journalist and he was there for legitimate journalistic purposes. Instead, they arrested him for who he was, not even for his speech. speech on the day, but for his activism in politics prior, because what they deemed is that this showed his intent was actually not to be there as a journalist, but they're there to be there

as part of the mob. And that's the big quote in all these charging documents. He was there to participate with the mob. And that's probably what it was for you, too, at least in the beginning, right? Because this was before you even worked for the blaze, before they knew what you would be reporting on. I mean, I know that you said that you weren't a Trump supporter, but you had voted for Trump. You were a libertarian, which they also don't like. You were writing about COVID, which they also don't like. So don't you think that was probably part of the motivation for you? My second article about January 6th was published on February 24th of 2021, six weeks after the big event.

And the title of that article was who was up the chain on January 6th. And in that article, I already had an idea of who put this thing together, and I had already started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I was also the first journalist to reveal that Army Special Forces had been embedded in the crowd. For what reasons I don't know. And it was 10 months after that before Newsweek actually ran an article that said that they, Army commandos with shoot to kill orders were embedded in the crowd. So I beat Newsweek to the punch by 10 months. So I think that they probably already knew that I was a danger to their narrative early on.

And that you had been putting things together. What do you have coming down the pipeline on this? I mean, I know you can't say everything, but just as far as the questions that people have, what are you seeking to answer? Well, as it relates specifically to January 6th. Yes. To a man and to a woman, the law enforcement officers that were thrown to the wolves, that day. I actually called them in a series I did called Capitol Police were sacrificial lambs. I believe that the front line, lower than command level officers were intended to be sacrificed

that day that day. And they were even, and that the Capitol Police leadership and those who were calling the shots on that day were willing to, because they expected the MAGA people to show up fully armed with guns and all of that. I think they expected a shootout that day. And I expect that they were fully willing to sacrifice a number of Capitol police officers that day. I also, as I said, to a man to a woman on the front line, they all believe that they were set up. We can prove that. We know that they were. We know that they were set up.

We're going to continue telling that story and showing how that's happened. And as we continue through this process, we're going to name names. We've had an incredible amount of assistance from Congress. Yeah, does it feel like they're slow rolling us on January 6th? Not having hearings. They should be at least duplicating what the original January 6th Select Committee was doing that was put together by Pelosi that put on a Hollywood-produced prime time show trial, essentially is all that was. Yeah, they should be. The GOP should be doing that.

But there's some problems there. The GOP are not united on this. More telling, though, is we're now learning how powerful the Capitol Police are. And this is a major part of where we're going. When you think about it, it doesn't take, but maybe just a slight little bit of prompting, and you'll see what I'm talking about. The Capitol Police are effectively the personal bodyguards of Congress. As a result, they know where all the bodies are buried.

they know who's buried the bodies they know who's sleeping with Lou they know who's sleeping with not who they're supposed to be sleeping with and all the other dirty laundry that's on Capitol Hill and so as when the GOP

gained control of the house in January of 23 and McCarthy, Speaker McCarthy came out and said we're releasing all the January 6th video and then two weeks later no we're not and then he sent his lieutenants like MTG and other ones out to say, oh, but there's reasons why.

Otherwise, we're going to get some innocent people jacked up in the J6 trial system if we do that. And also they pull back. And then all of a sudden, Tucker went out. He did his couple of days of reveal after having access to capital CCTV. By the way, Tucker's producers called me to ask me what they need to be looking at. Yeah. Then all of a sudden, he goes away. I mean, he really goes away.

You know, he gets fired from Fox. But suddenly, with all of this unprecedented access he had, he only did two nights and then never mentioned it again. And then jump forward again, Mike Johnson is given the speakership. He says, I'm going to release all the video. And then all of a sudden for weeks, nothing is released. There was another batch released the other day. The problem is, as we know it, is the power of Capitol Police leadership, The Capitol Police Board basically, I mean, there's no other way to say it.

Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh. You release that. We release what we know. Right. That's what you're saying is going on. Both Republicans and Democrats have a lot of skeletons in their closet, and they don't want those doors to be opened by Capitol Police. And I don't believe for a moment, because I've spent time with each of them.

I've spent time with Speaker Johnson. I've spent time with Barry Latimer, whose subcommittee has control. actual direct oversight over the access to the Capitol Police. They've helped us tremendously. They've not held anything back from me yet, except some documents. I've gotten all the video that I've asked for, both with the permission of the speaker and Loudermilk. We've worked with some other congressmen.

We're working with more. There's still some internal documents that are in the files of the United States Capitol police that they know that it ends up in my hands that it's volatile. In fact, one of the documents that we've seen, but we can't write about it until we have it, you know what I mean? I can't, because if I can't prove it to the American public, I can't write about it. But senior congressional aide who's had his eyes on it told me, quote unquote, it's nuclear. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So we continued to, these are not classified documents, but Capitol Police is not subject to freedom of information

act requests. They're exempt by Congress, wonder why, from FOIA requests. And so we can't just, as a news agency, FOIA that information. It's being blocked at the highest level. How have you dealt with all of this personally, emotionally, spiritually? I'm sure you couldn't have anticipated being in this position five years ago. And so how have you worked this out in your own mind and heart? I fully believed that I was going to die on stage from an aneurysm from playing my trumpet. Yeah. Too late in life.

And, you know, after my, you know, my arteries and my veins had gotten weak. Yeah. And the pressure it takes to play a trumpet. That's what I've done for, you know, over 50 years of my life. Yeah. Over 40 years of that professionally. I'm a singer. My favorite thing that I've ever done as a singer was I had a David Bowie tribute act that was shut down because of COVID.

That's why in these videos I have a lot longer hair in these capital of CCTV. I was using the COVID lockdown time to actually grow my hair out to another look of Bowies. And so anyway, the going down the list. list emotionally, I, everything that I've been through in the last four years, if you, if you can't see that as divine providence, you have a sealed or seared soul, conscience, spirit. That doesn't mean I haven't wrestled against it. That doesn't mean that for over two years I haven't prayed, Lord let this cup pass from me. But I have also said that if I have to be poured out as a drink offering on the altar of liberty,

so be it. I'll do it. And I don't want to. It's not where you saw your life going. No. But my children are proud of me. They believe in me. I can't remember who I told the other day, but I'll repeat it here.

there's only two people on this planet because of me. It's my son and my daughter. And as long as they're proud of me, I can go the next step. I understand that. And even though most of us are not in your position and can't even imagine what it has been like for you, that we can relate to.

That we can relate to. How can my audience specifically be praying for you? I think it should be self-evident. I, you know, we need wisdom in our next step in terms of how we're going to plan our defense strategy with my attorneys. That's to be determined the first piece of the puzzle that we have to gain access to is who our judge is going to be. And, you know, with as many judges in the district court there in D.C. and all the trials have to be there. They've not granted a change of venue in a single trial yet.

So we may get a hanging judge or we may get a reasonable judge. But even regardless of the case of what type of judge we get, a radical leftist activist judge who we know how severely he or she might treat the J6 defendants, We know that even with the more common sense and reasonable judges, you know what you're up against in D.C. It's a 99.75% conviction rate on January 6th trials so far. Only two acquittals have happened out of over 1,300 cases so far. And in both of those cases, it was a bench trial.

trial. Got a reasonable judge in a bench trial. No defendant has yet got out completely unscathed by a jury. They were either convicted on all counts or convicted on some counts and other, you know, acquitted on maybe lesser charges or a worse charge or this or another thing. There's been some hung jury moments, but not on all charges. No one's gotten out unscathed on a jury yet. So we don't know what our strategy is going to be until we start putting this together. And of course, it's a lot of long ways before there will be a trial because there will be all kinds of motions. I mean, we're certainly going to file intense and vigorous motions to dismiss over selective prosecution and things with that nature. And they know all this is coming. I'm not saying anything. I'm not giving anything away. And I'm not going to get chastised by my attorneys for talking like this at the moment.

But there's a lot to, so we, so yeah, to answer your question, we have to pray for wisdom. at the end of the day, I need the wisdom because whatever my six attorneys bring to me as suggestions, it's going to be my decision about which way to go. And so that's the most important thing. And just for continued courage, I'm thankful for your courage. We often say that courage is contagious. It courage begets courage. And so not everyone will find themselves in your exact position, but your courage is an example to people that you can do hard things. I think, probably what they wanted you to do was to say, oh gosh, I'm getting in trouble. I'm going to stop talking about this. And you could have done that. You could have. You could have said,

I think I'm going to go back to music. I think I'm going to go do something easier. And I really don't want to be poking this bear anymore because this bear is huge and it's really scary. But you decided, that was a decision. You decided to forge ahead. It's not just that all of this is happening to you. You've decided to wage war. And that takes bravery. And, And I'm thankful for that. However, this ends up, and we will be praying so much for your success and for your protection and the protection of all of these people who have been cut up and all of this. And for true justice, true justice to prevail.

So I just want to thank you because it means a lot to me. Thank you. I'm doing it for one reason and one reason only. It's because I believe in the cause of liberty. I believe in our Constitution. I believe in our Bill of Rights. and I want that country for my children and their children. And I've got a, I'm in a unique position.

You know, I'm single, I've been for 17 years. My children are grown. The government weaponized me against them when they took my job away. This is their fault. And Lord, give me the wisdom, give me the knowledge. and whatever talents and experience you've given me accumulated in my life, use them as you see fit. That's the prayer. Amen.

Well, thank you so much. Thanks for taking the time to come on. Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles. faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.