FBI arrests Wake County man, ‘Stephen Ignoramus,’ accused in attack on U.S. Capitol

Will Doran

The FBI arrested a Wake County man accused of breaking into the U.S. Capitol building with other rioters last month, after former President Donald Trump held a rally for supporters and falsely claimed the presidential election had been stolen from him.

Stephen Maury Baker, of Garner, was arrested Monday and charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building, as well as “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”

There does not appear to be anyone by that name who is registered to vote in North Carolina.

According to the charges against him, Baker was part of the mob that broke into the Capitol and began livestreaming it online, including via his YouTube channel called “Stephen Ignoramus.” He repeatedly referred to himself by that name, showed his face on his videos several times from inside the Capitol, and ended one of his streams by saying the cops were forcing everyone out of the building.

“That was so epic,” he said, according to the charges against him. “Historic day.”

The FBI says Baker deleted the videos from his YouTube page at some point between Jan. 6 and Jan. 8, but that it found copies of the videos that had been uploaded to other video sites, as well as by news media organizations.

Those details of the charges against him were kept secret until he was in custody, according to a Monday court filing, to prevent the possible destruction of evidence or other damage to the investigation.

Baker was identified by multiple witnesses who contacted authorities, the charges say. One witness told authorities he had at least two YouTube channels, although one of them had been banned in December, and the witness was “alarmed by the content ... including advancement of conspiracy theories and mockery of minority groups.”

Currently, the only publicly available videos on the Stephen Ignoramus channel are four hour-long videos of him preaching and playing Christian songs on an acoustic guitar.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

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