Writer pleads guilty to Capitol riot charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — A writer for a conservative media outlet pleaded guilty on Tuesday to joining a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago, after a federal judge refused to pause his case until after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Steve Baker, who has written articles about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot for Blaze News, entered his guilty plea on the day that his bench trial had been scheduled to begin.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper is scheduled to sentence Baker on March 6, but the judge acknowledged that the case may never reach the punishment stage. Trump has repeatedly vowed to issue pardons to Jan. 6 riot defendants.

Baker, 64, of Durham, North Carolina, had asked Cooper to postpone all of the deadlines and hearings for his case until after Trump's inauguration. But the judge denied Baker’s request. Other judges have rejected similar requests by Capitol riot defendants who hope Trump will pardon them.

After his guilty plea, Baker told reporters that he is "very confident that I'm at the top of the list" if Trump hands out pardons. Baker said he pleaded guilty “to avoid the shaming exercise of a trial” and maintained that he didn't do anything wrong on Jan. 6.

“I don't have a regret about my behavior that day,” he said outside the courthouse.

Blaze News is part of an online platform that conservative political commentator Glenn Beck founded in 2011 after leaving Fox News. Baker started writing for the media outlet after the Jan. 6 siege. He was working as a freelance journalist on Jan. 6 and later sold videos of the riot to The New York Times and HBO.

Baker’s coverage of the Jan. 6 attack included the trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four associates charged with seditious conspiracy for a plot to keep Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election. Baker covered the trial from a courthouse room reserved for news reporters.

Baker was arrested and charged in March with four misdemeanor counts, including trespassing and disorderly conduct charges. He pleaded guilty to all four counts.

After the riot erupted, Baker entered the Capitol through a broken door and joined the mob at the barricaded doors to the House chamber, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

In another part of the Capitol, the affidavit says, Baker “antagonized” police officers who tried to keep him on the other side of a doorjamb, repeatedly asking, “Are you going to use that (gun) on us?” He remained inside the building for approximately 37 minutes before police led him out of the Capitol, according to the FBI.

The affidavit cites statements that Baker made during and after the riot. After leaving the Capitol, he told a local television station that he was “quite excited to see this going on.”

“Do I approve of what happened today? I approve 100%,” he said, according to the affidavit.

Baker also told the station that approximately 20 to 30 people were inside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office “at the time that I got there.” In a video uploaded to a YouTube channel on Jan. 6, Baker also referred to Pelosi with a sexist expletive.

“The only thing I regret is that I didn’t like steal their computers because God knows what I could’ve found on their computers if I’d done that. But by the time I got into Pelosi’s office, unfortunately there was some damage done,” Baker said, according to the FBI.

Cooper said he was troubled by Baker's rhetoric that day.

“If you haven't reassessed those comments, I'm not sure there's anything I could say today that would change your mind,” the judge added.

More than 1,500 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 1,000 convicted rioters have been sentenced, with over 650 receiving prison time ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Cooper said the Jan. 6 prosecutions have been decided by facts and evidence, exemplifying the rule of law.

“They have not been governed by unsupported opinions and conspiracy theories,” the judge said.

Baker and his attorneys accused the Justice Department of selectively prosecuting him for his political beliefs. But the judge rejected that claim, calling it “unfounded speculation.”