What the GUARDED January 6 footage REALLY holds, according to a journalist with access to the tapes



Steve Baker is a lifelong musician and music industry professional, but he’s known for something far different now.

What started as a fun pastime writing about politics turned into something much bigger.

Baker is now a full-blown investigative journalist, and he’s found himself in a bit of hot water after his coverage of the January 6 protest — which he believes goes much deeper than the mainstream media is telling us.

His footage has been used in several January 6 documentaries, including ones made by the New York Times and HBO, as well as news agencies all over the world.

“Fast-forward two and a half years, and I just got a grand jury subpoena for it,” Baker tells James Poulos. “According to what the FBI told me and my lawyer back 21 months ago, they told me that I was going to be prosecuted for interstate racketeering.”

As no other journalists or peaceful protesters that Baker is aware of have been threatened with the same charge, Baker says “the only thing that we’ve been able to surmise is that they want to charge me with, I guess, the preconceived notion that I knew something was going to happen of an illegal nature, and therefore I traveled across state lines to get to D.C.”

Despite the accusations, Baker is one of only five journalists who have been granted access to over 41,000 hours of footage from the protest.

He notes that he became suspicious of what was really going on during one of the trials last year.

“There was a moment where I felt like that I saw something untoward or something suspicious happening between the lead prosecuting attorney, his name is Jeffrey Nestler, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Judge Amit Mehta, who was sitting on the bench in this particular trial.”

According to Baker, his “antennas went up” when he saw what he believed to be “suppression of evidence” and “collusion.”

That’s when he began digging.

“I backdoored my way into the Capitol to see these videos” as well as “into seeing some of this evidence that was under court seal,” he tells Poulos.

He was able to verify that what he saw in court was in fact a suppression of evidence “that would quite likely be exculpatory evidence for these defendants.”

However, that’s not all Baker has found.

“What we have discovered is not only suppression of evidence, but also the creation out of thin air of evidence that did not exist for the purpose of convicting,” Baker tells Poulos, adding that “there are people who have been scapegoated who have become the patsies, who have become the anointed leaders of the insurrection.”

Those “anointers leaders” were in fact “not at all” and “have been falsely accused.”

While Baker cannot currently release the names of these scapegoats, he will soon be able to take a few Blaze reporters with him into the video room, where he says he will finally be able to “get this off my chest.”


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CNN, NBC each paid an anti-Trump Capitol rioter $35K for his footage



CNN and NBC each paid $35,000 to accused left-wing Capitol rioter John Sullivan for the rights to footage he captured inside and outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, including video of the fatal shooting of protester Ashli Babbitt by law enforcement, invoices show.

What are the details?

The revelation came during a recent court hearing in which Sullivan — who is charged with provoking violence during the storming of the Capitol last month — avoided being banned on Facebook and Twitter but was ordered by a judge to quit his alleged work as a videographer.

Sullivan, who has described himself as an anti-Trump activist and supporter of Black Lives Matter, maintains that he is a journalist who travels the country filming violent uprisings for Insurgence USA, a media company he claims to have founded earlier in 2020 after the death of George Floyd. To prove claims that he is a professional journalist, Sullivan's defense team filed invoices showing that both CNN and NBC paid Sullivan a hefty amount for footage he captured during the events of Jan. 6.

These are the invoices filed with the court today. https://t.co/JdOZ9pXaIa
— Kyle Cheney (@Kyle Cheney)1613527942.0

What else?

But federal prosecutors contend that Sullivan is a provocateur who masquerades as a journalist. According to Politico, during court proceedings, prosecutors have argued that he "actively encourages violence, telling viewers how to make Molotov cocktails and evade identification by police."

In a complaint filed against him by the Department of Justice, prosecutors point to statements Sullivan made during his filming of the Capitol riot, which include, "This s**t is ours! F*** yeah," "We accomplished this s**t. We did this together. F*** yeah! We are all a part of this history," and "Let's burn this s**t down."

In a press release about his arrest, prosecutors allege that "Sullivan, wearing a ballistics vest and gas mask, entered the U.S. Capitol through a window that had been broken out, pushing past U.S. Capitol Police once inside."

He was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct, and interfering with law enforcement engaged in the lawful performance of their official duties. Sullivan has since been hit with an additional charge: obstruction of Congress, Politico noted.

Last words

CNN's payment to Sullivan, who admittedly does not have press credentials, stands in contrast to its treatment of credentialed BlazeTV reporter Elijah Schaffer, who also captured footage of the Capitol riot. Last month, CNN launched an investigation into Schaffer to see if there was evidence of wrongdoing on his part.

The network was apparently not nearly as suspicious about Sullivan.

Payments to Capitol Hill “terrorists”:Trump: $0CNN: $35,000 https://t.co/P37fXZVRLD
— Tom Elliott (@Tom Elliott)1613586879.0

CNN even interviewed Sullivan following the events.

Activist John Sullivan on CNN Anderson Cooper discussing US Capitol riots www.youtube.com