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 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 hardline 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.
“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 upwards of 90 journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, bloggers, stringers, and freelancers who were at the Capitol.
“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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When federal agents raided the rural Virginia farm of Thomas Caldwell on Jan. 19, 2021, they were sure he was a kingpin of the Oath Keepers and the architect of a heinous attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
They treated him as such.
The permanently disabled Navy veteran said he was thrown onto the hood of an FBI sedan after a SWAT team lit him and his wife, Sharon, up with red lasers in the freezing air on the porch of their farmhouse in Berryville, Virginia.
“I had asked them five separate times, ‘What am I being charged with? What am I being charged with?’ They finally said, ‘Trespassing.’ I said, ‘Are you out of your mind? You come here and point guns in my wife’s face for trespassing? Where am I supposed to have trespassed?’ They said, ‘Well, you went into the Capitol.’”
Caldwell never entered the Capitol, but he spent nearly two months in isolation after being kicked, beaten, and mocked upon his initial intake at a Virginia jail. He said guards mocked his Christian faith as they kicked him in the groin.
“The guy that was the kicker said to me, he said, ‘Where’s your Sky Daddy? Where’s your Sky Daddy? Gonna come down here and help you?’ He was referring, of course, to Jesus Christ. I never want to forget it,” Caldwell said in 2022. “I never want to forget it.”
The Central Virginia Regional Jail conducted an internal investigation after Caldwell’s descriptions were published in the Epoch Times. The sheriff said he could not substantiate Caldwell’s assertions.
Caldwell had spinal fusion surgery on his neck on Oct. 22. He had a total hip replacement in May 2022.
Nearly four years later, the government’s story about Caldwell has dramatically changed. He’s no longer the plot-keeper or the mastermind of a potential armed assault on the Capitol, and prosecutors are no longer seeking to send him to prison for 14 years. Caldwell is scheduled for a Nov. 18 sentencing hearing in Washington, D.C.
Caldwell was found guilty by a jury of a single count: tampering with evidence — that being photos on his own phone that were backed up on a home computer and on Facebook.
Caldwell was originally found guilty of the dubious 20-year felony “obstruction of an official proceeding” that was chopped down by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark June 28 ruling. The DOJ has since withdrawn the charge that led to that guilty verdict.
In a trial that ran from Sept. 27 to Nov. 29, 2022, Caldwell was found not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, seditious conspiracy, and attempting to prevent a member of Congress from discharging duties.
His four co-defendants — including Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III — were sentenced in 2023. Three remain in prison, and one has been released on probation.
The 70-year-old U.S. Navy veteran faces sentencing only for the obstruction of justice/tampering with evidence count. Defense attorney David Fischer is asking U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to sentence Caldwell to time served, meaning the 53 days he spent in pretrial detention at Central Virginia Regional Jail. Caldwell has been in home detention for the 833 days since.
'A lot of the things that they’re saying are horrible and seditious are mocking and jibing and poking fun with friends.'
“Caldwell’s medical ailments, his status as a Zero-Point Offender, his full acquittal on January 6-related conspiracy counts at a time when D.C. juries had not acquitted a single defendant of a single count (65-0), his perfect performance while on pretrial release, and his military service that resulted in a lifetime of debilitating injuries suggest that a sentence of time-served (53 days) is appropriate,” Fischer wrote in a six-page supplemental sentencing memo filed Nov. 4 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Fischer said Caldwell had spinal fusion surgery on his neck on Oct. 22. He had a total hip replacement in May 2022. He suffered debilitating injuries caused by a mortar round during a classified mission in the Philippines. Fischer has described his client as a “physical wreck.”
“Respectfully, a sentence that includes incarceration would be inappropriate based upon Caldwell’s recent fusion surgery and his status as a 100 percent service-connected disabled veteran,” Fischer wrote.
Caldwell and his wife attended the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol. He did not enter the building, commit violence, or vandalize the property. The pair did walk up stairs to the Lower West Terrace to take selfies and then retreated.
What Caldwell did was to write, talk, and cuss like a sailor about the 2020 presidential election and the Democrat leadership in Congress. He used an encrypted messaging app to fire off colorful missives to some of his veteran buddies.
“A lot of the things that they’re saying are horrible and seditious are mocking and jibing and poking fun with friends—in private conversations—sometimes with one person in a text message, or two people,” Caldwell told the Epoch Times in 2022. “In fact, some of these things are with guys that are 75 miles away in Virginia, who are at their farms, drunk as lords, as they say, watching stuff on TV.”
'Caldwell’s conduct and behavior were more akin to a loud-mouth Walter Mitty.'
Prosecutors presented as credible the statements Caldwell made about using duck skiffs to ferry weapons across the Potomac River as part of a “quick-reaction force” to attack the Capitol. He was cited by prosecutors for suggesting he would use the doorknob of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office as a bathroom wipe.
Caldwell was never a member of the Oath Keepers, although some Oath Keepers camped on his farm property while attending protests in Washington, D.C., in November and December 2020. Prosecutors continue to tie him to the Oath Keepers.
“Caldwell plotted with other affiliates of the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and then he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021,” prosecutors wrote in their 14-page Nov. 4 supplemental sentencing memorandum. “In his own words, Caldwell ‘heard that Pence f**ked us ... so I grabbed up my American flag and said, ‘Let’s take the damn Capitol’ and, ‘Let’s storm the place and hang the traitors.’”
In his court filings, Fischer has tried to separate his client’s bluster from the alleged elements of the charged crime.
“Caldwell’s conduct and behavior were more akin to a loud-mouth Walter Mitty than the Rambo-type figure the government has portrayed him since his arrest,” Fischer wrote in May 2023.
Fischer said the photos Caldwell was charged with deleting were backed up on Facebook and a home computer.
“The deleted/unsent items were not exactly akin to throwing a murder weapon in the river and, thus, were neither essential nor ‘especially probative,’” Fischer wrote. “The jury, importantly, did not find the deleted/unsent items particularly probative. The deleted/unsent items were introduced by the government to the jury, which subsequently acquitted Caldwell on all conspiracy counts.”
Prosecutors have described the Caldwell case in dark, sweeping, dramatic tones.
“It is not hyperbole to call what happened on January 6 a crime of historic magnitude,” they wrote in the DOJ sentencing memo. “As judges of this district have repeatedly and clearly stated, January 6 was an unprecedented disruption of the nation’s most sacred function—conducting the peaceful transfer of power."
“‘The events that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th will be in the history books that our children read, our children’s children read and their children’s children read. It’s part of the history of this nation, and it’s a stain on the history of this nation,’” the DOJ memo stated, quoting from U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss.
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A federal appeals court upheld a misdemeanor trespass charge used against more than 1,400 defendants who protested at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but the issue could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a 45-page ruling, a three-judge panel upheld the conviction of Jan. 6 defendant Couy Griffin on a charge of knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds under U.S. Code 18 §1752(a)(1).
The two judges signing the majority opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit were Cornelia Pillard — an appointee of President Barack Obama — and Judith Rogers, appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed to the bench by President Donald J. Trump, filed a 22-page dissenting opinion.
The statute is designed to protect the president, vice president, and other top government officials from trespassers. It has two elements: The area in question must be “posted, cordoned off or otherwise restricted” and be one where “the president or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting.”
'I would vacate Griffin’s conviction and remand for further findings or proceedings.'
Griffin entered the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol just after 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, walked onto the West Plaza and up a flight of stairs to the inauguration stage, where he prayed and spoke to the crowd below using a bullhorn.
Griffin, the founder of Cowboys for Trump, argued that he was not aware that Vice President Mike Pence being in the U.S. Capitol was the basis for the second element of §1752(a)(1).
Pence presided over the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. He was evacuated from the U.S. Senate at 2:11 p.m. and moved to a secure loading dock just before the Capitol was breached by the swelling crowds.
After a March 2022 bench trial before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, Griffin was found guilty of violating §1752(a)(1) and not guilty of a charge that he intended to disrupt the orderly conduct of government business. Judge McFadden made no finding whether Griffin knew that the vice president would be present on Jan. 6.
Three months later, Griffin received a time-served prison sentence. He had spent 20 days in pretrial detention. His appeal of conviction was argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 4, 2023.
In her client’s appeal, assistant federal public defender Lisa Wright said as Griffin approached the Capitol, “There was no signage or police presence indicating that he was not allowed to be there.”
“A reasonable person would expect that, if a part of the Capitol grounds was meant to be closed, there would be some signage, barricades, or police presence to tell him so,” Wright wrote in her appeal brief. “But everywhere Mr. Griffin went–past walls that enclosed nothing and through an open door near the base of the Capitol steps–he encountered no postings or police suggesting he had reached an area that was off-limits.”
Wright said that prosecutors had not proven that Griffin knew the vice president was still at the Capitol. Some 45 minutes before he set foot on the West Lawn, evidence showed Griffin remarked that Pence “certified it,” referring to the Electoral College tally.
In the majority opinion, Judges Rogers and Pillard wrote that prosecutors did not need to prove that Griffin knew the vice president was present in order to satisfy elements of the crime.
“We hold that the trial evidence sufficed to prove that the Capitol grounds were ‘posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted’ under section 1752(c)(1), and that Griffin knew they were so restricted when he entered and remained there,” they wrote. “We further hold that the government was not required to prove that Griffin knew when he entered and remained in the restricted area that Vice President Pence was still there.”
In his dissent, Judge Katsas said knowledge that an area is restricted and that a protectee of the U.S. Secret Service such as the vice president is present are both necessary for a conviction.
“Some evidence suggests Griffin did not know, such as his later, mistaken statement that the vice president had already certified the election before Griffin arrived at the Capitol,” Katsas wrote. “Because an essential element of the section 1752(a)(1) charge thus remains unresolved, I would vacate Griffin’s conviction and remand for further findings or proceedings.”
Many defense attorneys expect the questions raised in the Griffin case to end up before the Supreme Court, which in June issued a ruling strictly limiting use of an accounting-fraud statute to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants.
The DOJ had charged more than 350 Jan. 6 defendants with the felony crime of obstruction of an official proceeding for the delay of the session of Congress. But the High Court said 18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2) could apply only to documents or other evidence used in a proceeding.
As of Aug. 6, the DOJ had charged 1,417 people with knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds — the most common Jan. offense.
However, the DOJ stopped reporting that total in its September and October statistical summaries. Instead, it inserted this language: “All defendants charged in the January 6 prosecution have been charged with some form of trespass or disorderly conduct, in violation of federal criminal codes.”
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A Texas married couple who said police assaulted them while they were praying on Jan. 6 were sentenced to years in prison Oct. 22 on felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from their time outside the U.S. Capitol during protests and subsequent rioting.
Mark Fulton Middleton, 54, and Jalise Kay Middleton, 54, of Forestburg, Texas, had asked U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to sentence them to home detention and probation, while the U.S. Department of Justice sought sentences of 7.25 years in prison for each.
Judge Moss sentenced Mark Middleton to 30 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, while he gave Jalise Middleton 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
In February, the Middletons were found guilty by a Washington, D.C., jury of assaulting, resisting, or impeding two police officers, civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct, engaging in physical violence and several other related misdemeanors.
'The officer was pulling her scarf and choking her.'
A guilty verdict on the felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding was dismissed in September due to the June 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Fischer v. United States. That opinion vastly limits use of an accounting-fraud statute — 18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2) — to prosecute cases that are not related to documents or other evidence. It was the most widely charged felony in Jan. 6 cases.
The crux of the Middletons’ case was what took place at the police line on the Capitol's West Plaza at about 2:10 p.m. on Jan. 6. The large crowd on the north side of the plaza pressed against the bike racks police were using to hold demonstrators back.
Police on the west front had been lobbing explosive munitions and firing other projectiles into the crowd for more than an hour, Capitol Police security video showed. A grenade exploded six-people deep in the crowd about a minute before the Middletons had their tangle with police, security video showed. Tear gas swirled about in the stiff wind.
The Middletons say if police had not picked up the bike rack barricades and pushed them into the protesters, they would not have made contact with the officers. What prosecutors described as the couple preparing to throw their bodies against the police line was actually the Middletons facing each other and praying, a defense attorney said.
“The videos do show that at one point, Mrs. Middleton’s scarf was being pulled by a police officer and Mr. Middleton has testified that he tried to pull Mrs. Middleton away from the police line and to have the police let go of his wife,” wrote defense attorney Stephen Brennwald in Mark Middleton's 21-page sentencing memo.
“That is a natural reaction that any person would have, even if the two people hadn’t been married for decades as the Middletons have,” he said.
Brennwald said there is no question that police initiated contact with the Middletons and others nearby.
“Her behavior only happened because she was assaulted first—hit by a police officer and pushed by a large violent protester behind her,” defense attorney Kira West wrote in Jalise Middleton's 27-page sentencing memo.
“The officer was pulling her scarf and choking her and Ms. Middleton indiscriminately swatted at him to escape what she perceived was going to be her sudden death,” West said.
Prosecutors took a dimmer view of the 5- to 7-second encounter.
“Mark Middleton heckled police officers, including by shouted obscenities,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean McCauley and Brendan Ballou in a 47-page sentencing supplemental memo. “Together, the Middletons then threw their bodies into the barricades. When officers tried to restore the barricades and ordered them to get back, both the Middletons assaulted two officers.”
'I felt responsible to let my voice be heard and make a difference.'
Prosecutors cited the political speech of both Middletons since Jan. 6 and accused them of “spreading falsehoods.”
“Mark Middleton has used his Twitter to trumpet—on an at least daily if not almost hourly basis—convicted January 6 rioters, promulgate conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and spread baseless lies about January 6,” prosecutors wrote.
The Middletons bragged about their deeds on social media and lied under oath during their trial, the DOJ said.
“They have sought to personally benefit by using the notoriety of their crimes to raise money and seek fame,” the DOJ wrote.
West rejected claims her client lied at the trial.
“Ms. Middleton made no false statements while testifying. Her testimony lines up with the video evidence in the case as well as other testimony and videos from other J6 trials,” West wrote.
The Middletons had a right to exercise freedom of speech regarding their concerns over the 2020 presidential election, West said.
“When this court considers all of the factors before it, the court must conclude that these are not the actions of someone there to overthrow the government or incite violence, but rather a concerned citizen who believed the election was stolen,” West said.
In his sentencing memo for Mark Middleton, Brennwald said he was not suggesting the Middletons “should have been where they were in the first place" or that police “did not have the right to, in some manner, move the crowd away from its location.”
“But the aggressiveness demonstrated by the police in this instance was not the finest example of police behavior, and ended up being counter-productive, as it inflamed passions in the crowd,” he wrote.
In an Oct. 19 letter to Judge Moss, Jalise Middleton said she was in fight-or-flight mode when the incident occurred.
“I felt responsible to let my voice be heard and make a difference,” she wrote of her decision to come to Washington, D.C. “The truth is, Jesus Christ makes the difference. My only job that day was to pray and stand firm. Amidst the chaos that quickly ensued, I forgot to trust him."
“Furthermore, I do passionately believe my actions that day were consistent with what any person would have done in our shoes,” Jalise Middleton wrote.
The FBI seized Jalise Middleton's wedding ring while executing a search warrant at the couple's home. Agents then took it with them. The Middletons have been married since May 1990.
“Wouldn’t a photograph of it suffice?” West asked. “Apparently not.”
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