Hunter Biden Pardon Backlash EXPOSES Corruption | Ep. 990

Hunter Biden Pardon Backlash EXPOSES Corruption | Ep. 990

FEMA and NC National Guard abandon North Carolinians living in TENTS as winter looms



Hurricane Helene had devastating effects on Western North Carolina. Many residents are still displaced. Some of them are even living in tents right now.

Why then has FEMA and the North Carolina National Guard ceased operations in areas most impacted by Helene?

Mercury One executive director JP Decker joins Jill Savage on “Blaze News Tonight” to share what the nonprofit is doing to fill the gap in the government’s absence.

“The devastation is still there. Nothing has really changed in regards to some of those buildings in Asheville or Black Mountain,” says Decker, adding that there’s still “20- to 30-feet tall piles of debris.”

By the looks of the North Carolina National Guard’s social media pages, however, it would seem that they’re working tirelessly to help the victims.

But when Decker was on the grounds with Mercury One, “There was no FEMA, there was no National Guard.”

In addition to other nonprofits, he says, “It was the everyday person who was standing in the gap and doing what the government should have been doing.”

Making matters worse is the fact that the city of Asheville, North Carolina, recently installed a single-unit public bathroom that cost a pretty $400,000.

“This shows how important local government elections are when you have people who are willing to do something like this when there's people that are suffering and living in tents,” says Decker.

Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson points to a recent article written by Blaze News investigative journalists Steve Baker and Joseph Hanneman, in which they report the same story.

“The Army, Air Force, and National Guard have pulled most personnel from Western North Carolina. The temporary shelter need is 'extremely urgent' as winter looms,” they wrote.

Baker, who spent time in North Carolina helping with relief efforts, has a difficult time speaking about the tragic abandonment of the North Carolinians.

“We made relationships with these [government employees] and became very friendly with them. We were seeing each other every day; we were going out to the disaster relief site ... going out with their dog teams, going out with their people, helping recover bodies and also help removing debris and clearing people's property,” he says. “And then to see these forces removed ... I get very emotional about this.”

“Last week ... I drove over a 100 miles through the most devastated areas in the western part of the state and mile after mile after mile, tent after tent after tent, where people won't leave their property because they're afraid they're going to lose it if they leave,” he recounts. “And not one military vehicle, not one troop on the ground.”

Shocked at what he was seeing, Baker said he called the public affairs offices to inquire about the egregious abandonment.

He was met with responses, such as, “You’re right, Mr. Baker. We withdrew.”

But when Baker asked the obvious follow up question — Why? — he was met with silence.

“There is no answer because there is no logical answer,” he tells the panel.

To hear more of the story, watch the clip above.

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‘This is gaslighting, this is propaganda’: How Hurricane Helene victims have been ABANDONED by the government



While the news cycle has shifted its focus to the president-elect and other timely issues, the people of North Carolina are still suffering in silence after Hurricane Helene ravaged the place they call home — with government assistance almost nowhere to be found.

Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker was on the ground in North Carolina following the deadly storm — and what he saw is something he can’t soon forget.

“You see the devastation, and you see houses up in trees, 30 feet above the current water level, that are still there, and it all of a sudden dawned on me, multi-hour, winding, 150-mile journey to Tennessee through the back roads, is I didn’t see a single military transport at all, of any kind,” Baker tells Sara Gonzales of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“Not one troop on the ground of any kind, either active duty or National Guard,” he adds, noting that as soon as he got back to Dallas, Texas, he began asking some serious questions.


“The first thing that I discovered was that in fact, the National Guard had been withdrawn on the 19th of this month,” Baker explains, adding, “So, as I’m starting to dig through this, I go to the X account of the North Carolina National Guard.”

According to Baker, the pinned post on the Guard's X account said, “This is a no fail mission. We are there for you until it’s over.”

“No, they’re not,” Baker comments. “So we’re working on this story for the last several days, and then just yesterday, all of the sudden, whoever their social media person is is populating the X page with all these new posts showing photos of all the work that they’re currently doing, except that some of those photos have green leaves on the trees still in the background.”

“This is gaslighting, this is propaganda, and so we’re asking the questions,” he adds.

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Officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt had SHOCKING track record



On January 6, 2021, Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, who was unarmed. Despite the lawsuit Babbitt’s family filed against Byrd and an eyebrow-raising disciplinary track record, Byrd has been repeatedly rewarded.

Not only was he given a “$36,000 retention bonus, more than $21,000 in security upgrades at his personal residence, and instructions that [he] not sit for a fitness-for-duty evaluation after Jan. 6, 2021,” Byrd was also “promoted from lieutenant to captain in 2023,” according to a recent article by Blaze News investigative journalist Joseph Hanneman.

Now Hanneman and fellow Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker join Jill Savage and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News Tonight” to break it down.


Byrd has “a history of carelessness with weapons,” says Hanneman. The most notable of these is the incident when Byrd “fired his service weapon at fleeing vehicles near his home while his neighbor was in the line of fire,” which was recently reported by a congressional oversight committee.

Byrd also “left his service weapon on the toilet tank in the Capitol Visitor Center.”

However, there are “three more case files” on Byrd, but these have magically “disappeared.”

“The records are missing,” says Hanneman, adding that from what he understands, the contents of these missing reports make the incidents we already know about “look rather tame.”

But Byrd’s incomplete record isn’t the only mystery. There’s also the conundrum of Frick and Frack — “the unidentified men near Ashli Babbitt when she was shot.”

To learn more about the scandals surrounding the death of Ashli Babbitt, watch the episode above.

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From journalist to 'felon': What went wrong for Steve Baker?



Blaze Media correspondent and now official “felon” Steve Baker has just pled guilty to four misdemeanor charges stemming from his presence at the Capitol during the January 6 riot.

While Baker was there as a journalist, like so many others who did not feel the wrath of the DOJ upon them, the justice system seems to believe he was there as a rioter.

“You must have been so relieved when Trump was elected,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” tells Baker, who confirms Gray’s assumption.

“That was a big part of my decision, because my pre-trial hearing was the morning after the election,” Baker explains. “It was brutal. The judge really showed his intolerance.”


“He showed that he was going to be completely inflexible in the trial, he dismissed all of our motions — deny, deny, deny, deny — and then the most important motion that we had is we were requesting from the government discovery on the other 80 to 100 journalists that went through the building and weren’t charged with anything,” he continues.

“So we were demanding discovery, and the judge says, ‘No, it’s not necessary,’” he adds.

Gray can’t believe it, questioning how the judge “can just decide arbitrarily what evidence can be introduced.”

“I know that he can rule on things that aren’t relevant to the case, but that’s pretty relevant to the case,” he adds.

While Baker could have requested a jury trial, he did not want one in Washington, D.C., as 95% of the population voted for Kamala Harris — who has spent a large part of her campaign demonizing any Trump supporters who were in attendance at the Capitol on January 6.

“Not exactly a favorable jury pool,” he jokes.

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The Injustice Department: Steve Baker pleads guilty to January 6 charges



Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker has been breaking down the January 6 trials of American citizens and exposing what he’s found for years now — and because of that, the hammer of the government came down on him as well.

Now he’s pleading guilty to four charges related to January 6.

“My decision was very easy after my sentencing hearing last Wednesday, which was of course the day after President Trump was confirmed to have won the election. I went through what I consider a brutal hearing in which the justice department, not only them but also the court itself, showed their inflexibility,” Baker explains to Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson of “Blaze News Tonight.”


“They showed to me that they were going to not allow us to present my case as I've imagined in my mind for three years now, that I would ultimately present my case if I was charged. And then after being charged back in March of this year, I’ve had nine, 10 months now to build that case,” he continues, noting that the court denied him on every motion made.

According to Baker, he had “behaved completely, 100% professionally as a journalist” and the prosecution is in “violation of the First Amendment.”

Because the court denied Baker the right to present his case, he decided to plead guilty instead.

“I told my attorneys in a Zoom call that we made immediately after my hearing last Wednesday that I was not going to do this. I was not going to allow the government to put me through nothing more than a shaming exercise and to be quite frank, a 100% losing record for January 6 defendants,” he explains.

“There has not been a single exoneration, not a single acquittal, so I was going up against that buzzsaw if I did go to trial today,” he adds.

While Baker was just doing his job, so were many other journalists in attendance on January 6 who are not facing the same fate. And seeing the same thing happen to others, he believes that no defendant was given a fair chance based on their political leaning.

“Beginning with the Oath Keepers trial, which of course was the biggest, most publicized January 6 trial of all,” he says, “I saw how those defendants were denied the right to prevent evidence that was exculpatory evidence in their own trial, and yet, the government was allowed to present basically anything that they wished.”

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Why I pled guilty — and what’s coming next



Today was supposed to be the day I promised myself and so many others that I would make my stand before the selectively weaponized and corrupt Department of Justice and Washington, D.C., court system. Having had three and a half years to prepare for this day, I’d determined in my own mind — perhaps naïvely — that I’d be able to have my own “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” moment and make my stand.

My case is a case of selective prosecution, not just against me but also against all those January 6 defendants who have been treated far more harshly than those who behaved equally or did far more violence and property damage — in this town — in the summer of 2020, on January 20, 2017, and even more recently in the pro-Palestinian demonstrations this year.

My trial would be nothing more than a shaming exercise.

Even though I was not accused of violence against law enforcement or any property damage, many saw my case as an example of glaring selective prosecution and a violation of my First Amendment right to be outspoken about my thoughts and opinions on January 6 before and after my arrival at the Capitol.

Yet while I was documenting the protest and riotous behavior of some for roughly two hours, I behaved as professionally as any other reporter or photojournalist on the scene, including some 80 to 100 media persons of all types who also knowingly entered restricted spaces without permission from law enforcement.

But the court would not allow the defense I hoped to begin today at trial. The court has denied my right to show selective prosecution by also denying our discovery request regarding how the government determined it was unnecessary to charge those other 80 to 100 media persons who also clearly, provably, and without permission from law enforcement breached exterior barricades clearly marked with “CLOSED AREA” signs and then accompanied both violent and peaceful protesters through broken windows and doors.

Because of these last-minute rejections by the court during my pretrial hearing last Wednesday, I instructed my attorneys to notify the Justice Department and the court of my intention to change my plea to “guilty” on all four misdemeanor charges.

As one of my attorneys stated, my trial would be nothing more than a shaming exercise. Apart from the fact that any J6 trial in this courthouse is a no-win scenario, today, I chose to deny the government the opportunity to put me through that senseless, waste-of-time shaming exercise.

The government also withdrew its plea deal offer, which, had I taken it earlier in this process, would have let me plead guilty to the single glorified trespassing charge but also would have required me to waive my right to appeal. Unfortunately, the federal courts do not have a “no contest” option, and because the court refused our request for continuance, we did not have time to seek an “Alford plea,” which would have allowed me to maintain my innocence in the appeals process.

In taking this action today, I not only deny the government its shaming exercise, but I also preserve my right to appeal should President Trump not come through on his campaign promise to pardon all nonviolent January 6 defendants.

Nevertheless, I will continue fighting this weaponized judicial system in the court of public opinion and in the halls of Congress in the coming months and years … for as long as necessary.

Steve Baker pleads guilty to 4 Jan. 6 charges to avoid the ‘shaming exercise’ of a trial



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.

Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker was prevented from using a selective-prosecution defense by US District Judge Christopher Cooper. US DOJ, Metropolitan Police Department, Capitol Police CCTV

“They make accusations that are not supported by the video that they provided to us in discovery,” Baker said. “At one point, [attorney Bill Shipley] called me up and said, ‘I think they're trying to send a signal that they want you to go to trial and do this thing because the videos they’re sending show you doing nothing more than being a journalist in the building that day,’ which is exactly what I did.”

Defense attorney Bill Shipley said Baker’s change of plea is not tantamount to a confession.

“You don't have to make a confession. We just have to acknowledge that there’s evidence that the government has that they will use to show intent, and we are not today contesting that evidence,” Shipley said. “But that doesn’t mean as part of a plea he has to say, ‘I intended to do this.’”

Baker has said he felt the DOJ was going after him for things he said on and after Jan. 6 and because his coverage as an independent journalist and later an investigative reporter for Blaze Media has caused the government embarrassment.

Baker said Judge Cooper lit into him for things he has written about District of Columbia judges and the DOJ, claiming he impugned the work of the criminal justice system.

“He then went into a long and passionate defense of how fair they have been,” Baker told Blaze News. “All of the judges, all of the courts have worked so hard to make sure all of the Jan. 6 defendants got a fair trial.”

Shipley said the defense gave prosecutors 61 names of journalists who entered the restricted space of the Capitol but were never charged with any crime. Baker said he has a longer list of upwards of 90 journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, bloggers, stringers, and freelancers who were at the Capitol.

Defense attorneys William Shipley (left) and Edward Tarpley Jr. appear with Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker at a press conference after Baker pleaded guilty to four Jan. 6 misdemeanors.Rebeka Zeljko/Blaze News

“There’s only been three or four of us who have been tried, charged, convicted, or pled guilty — and every one of us are voices on the right side of the political ledger,” Baker said.

Because there is not a “no contest” plea in federal criminal court and using an Alford plea requires approval of the attorney general, Baker ended up simply pleading guilty. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit to crimes charged but accepts being sentenced for them.

“I wasn’t going to get approval for anything like that [Alford plea],” Baker said. “And so the bottom line is that the mischaracterization of the statement of facts is what I'm talking about, and I pled guilty to their assertions today to avoid the shaming process of going through one of these trials because that's exactly what they are. I have witnessed them because, as I said before, they lie.”

Baker said if President-elect Donald J. Trump follows through with his campaign pledge to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, “Then I'm very confident that I'm at the top of the list.”

Baker said Judge Cooper seemed to acknowledge that pardons will be forthcoming from the White House. The judge decided to give the monologue he usually reserves for sentencing hearings because, “It’s not likely I’m going to see you in March.'”

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Mr. President, pardon Steve Baker and the nonviolent J6 defendants on day 1



Steve Baker’s trial was scheduled to begin Tuesday at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C., but anyone expecting high legal drama was left disappointed. After last week’s election, playing along with the farce would have been a waste of everyone’s time and taxpayers’ money.

In a fairer world, federal prosecutors would have pondered the recent headlines and taken a sensible step back. That’s what special counsel Jack Smith did with his crusade against Donald Trump, who, Lord willing, will take the oath of office again on January 20.

Do the right thing, Mr. President, and do it without delay.

“The Government respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,” Smith wrote last week. A district court judge readily agreed.

Baker’s attorney, William Shipley, filed a motion on Sunday to delay his trial and revisit the case in February, citing Smith and the Justice Department’s new stance.

“To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position,” Shipley argued, “would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency.”

Judge Christopher Cooper on Monday denied the motion, the “interests of justice” be damned.

So Baker pled guilty Tuesday morning to all four misdemeanor counts against him. A trial would have been, in the words of one of his attorneys, “nothing more than a shaming exercise” in a court where the outcome is all but guaranteed.

Baker is scheduled to be sentenced on March 6 — two months after Congress is supposed to certify Donald Trump’s election. If that isn’t divine providence, nothing is.

Promises made ...

Trump made a great many promises during the campaign for the election, which he won by a landslide, including a vow to pardon the January 6 political prisoners. “Oh, absolutely, I would,” Trump said in July. “If they’re innocent, I would pardon them.”

Note the caveat if they are innocent. More than 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the Capitol protest, which devolved into a riot that left hundreds of police and protesters injured. Hundreds have been found guilty and sentenced. But not all the people who have faced criminal prosecution and prison time are angels or heroes. Some of them committed assault and vandalized property. They needed to be held accountable.

But the vast majority of the J6 cases involve nonviolent offenses, amounting to little more than trespassing. Note that not one person has been charged with insurrection for “the insurrection.”

Baker, a Blaze Media investigative journalist, was arrested in March and charged with the government’s four go-to misdemeanors: knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a capitol building; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building.

Last month, the government offered Baker a deal: plead guilty to “knowingly entering or remaining,” pay a hefty fine, and waive his right to appeal. He passed.

Why did the Justice Department wait three years to indict Baker anyway? He committed no violence. He didn’t fight with police or even argue with them. He was there as an independent journalist covering a story — along with anywhere from 80 to 100 other bloggers, writers, reporters, and videographers who similarly lacked official credentials. He walked through an open door into the building and calmly recorded the scene. Afterward, he wrote about what he heard and saw and cooperated fully with the FBI. He’s been perfectly transparent.

He's also been critical of the U.S. Capitol Police and the Justice Department’s response to the events of January 6 and the weaponization of law against political dissenters. Federal prosecutors had little to say to Baker before Blaze Media began publishing his investigations, which we’ve collected under “The Truth About January 6.” Maybe that had something to do with it.

Promises to keep

The full story of what happened on January 6, 2021, has yet to be told. The House of Representatives’ farcical one-sided select committee sought to cement a narrative in which a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol at the behest of the president and tried to steal the election by preventing Congress from certifying the electoral vote. It’s a tale so stupid only Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson could believe it.

Lingering questions nearly four years on lend themselves to conspiracy theories, which could be easily dispelled with a full and bipartisan accounting. Maybe we can get a better idea of how many federal agents were in the crowd. We might learn whether some of those agents were sent to be provocateurs or if they were on hand simply to observe and report. Perhaps with Donald Trump back in the White House and Republicans in control of the House and Senate, we might get some added sunlight.

But before the reckoning, the January 6 defendants need a resolution. Trump promised pardons and clemency, and he needs to deliver on day one. He would set the tone for the next two years, demonstrating with the stroke of a pen that this time will be different. The administrative state would be on notice that their days of abusing of power with impunity are over.

Pardon Steve Baker so he can continue his vital work. Pardon the nonviolent protesters and take a second look at the other cases, such as the Proud Boys’ and Oath Keepers’ “seditious conspiracy” trials. And, for the sake of their grieving families, posthumously pardon Matthew Perna, Nejourde “Jord” Meacham, Mark Aungst, and Christopher Georgia, all of whom committed suicide in the face of weaponized prosecution.

Do the right thing, Mr. President, and do it without delay.

Steve Baker seeks Jan. 6 trial delay, citing massive Trump election victory



Blaze Media investigative reporter Steve Baker filed a late motion in U.S. District Court to delay all proceedings in his looming Jan. 6 criminal trial, citing the Department of Justice pausing its prosecution of President-elect Donald J. Trump.

The lead defense attorney for Baker, scheduled to go to trial on Nov. 12, asked U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper “to vacate all dates and hearings in this case in the interests of justice, and to set a status conference in this matter for the week of February 2, 2025.”

William Shipley cited the DOJ’s motion to pause the criminal case against the president-elect in light of the Nov. 5 election “to afford the government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.”

'The "people" on behalf of whom the government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5.'

“The unique circumstances now before this Court — a president-elect having pledged to reverse the decision-making of the predecessor administration after having made the issue a part of his campaign promises — and the Department of Justice now making a representation on the record in another case that the election outcome is a change in circumstances warranting a delay, justifies defendant Baker making this motion,” Shipley wrote in a motion filed late on Nov. 10.

Baker, 64, of Raleigh, North Carolina, is charged with four trespass-related misdemeanor counts for being at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was in Washington to document the historic protests and provide coverage for the readers of his blog, the Pragmatic Constitutionalist. Now a Blaze Media writer, Baker was arrested in Dallas on March 1 and perp-walked in front of media at the FBI offices.

Baker had planned a selective-prosecution defense, noting that no left-of-center media reporters and podcasters were prosecuted for covering the Jan. 6 protests and riots. Armed with a list of more than 75 journalists who were not charged, Baker sought discovery from the government explaining the apparent political tilt in its prosecutions.

Blaze Media investigative reporter Steve Baker is perp-walked before the media at the FBI offices in Dallas on March 1, 2024.Photos by Blaze Media

“To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position, would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency,” Shipley wrote.

Baker said the list itself weighs heavily in favor of his selective-prosecution strategy.

“The most important legal argument that we’re bringing is this: Somewhere in the vicinity of 80 journalists of all types — credentialed employees of mainstream news organizations from the New York Times to the L.A. Times to French media to British television — went through broken windows and broken doors that day without permission,” Baker said Oct. 29. “Included in that bunch were freelancers, independents, bloggers, podcasters, and social media influencers without credentials.”

Trump’s sweeping election victory with 312 Electoral College votes and a popular vote margin of 3.6 million votes creates a new reality that the courts should not ignore, Shipley argued.

Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker captured iconic video footage on the West Plaza of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Steve Baker/Blaze Media

“Before the government makes the claim that the ‘people’ have an interest in the administration of justice as reflected in the Speedy Trial Act, defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the government purports to speak,” Shipley wrote, “made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what administration is now in charge.”

In a nine-page opinion issued Oct. 25, Cooper refused Baker’s motion to dismiss the charges. He previously denied Baker’s motion to retain his right to carry a firearm after threats were made against his safety. Baker appealed the issue, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against him.

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