House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan wants President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice to explain why it targeted Blaze investigative reporter Steve Baker for covering the Jan. 6, 2021 chaos at the U.S. Capitol. Baker, one of the leading conservative journalists covering the fallout from the events at the Capitol, faces four charges connected to his presence while reporting at the demonstrations.
In a letter penned on March 12, Jordan demanded U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. Matthew Graves hand over documents, communications, and other information related to Baker’s arrest and charges as well as “the investigation, prosecution, or arrest of any journalists covering the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
“There are serious concerns about selective prosecution in this case as well as the Department’s commitment to the First Amendment rights of journalists,” Jordan warned. The Republican noted that “other journalists were in the Capitol at the same time as Mr. Baker who have not been charged with crimes” but Baker, “who has been critical of the Department’s handling of the January 6 investigations and prosecutions” was.
“As Mr. Baker’s attorney noted, the Department ‘is not allowed to decide what press coverage it likes and what press coverage offends it and take prosecutorial action based on those judgments’,” Jordan wrote.
The FBI told Baker last month to turn himself in without disclosing the exact charges he would face. When Baker self-surrendered in Dallas on March 1, the FBI “fingerprinted, photographed, handcuffed, and placed Mr. Baker
