Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Shauni Kerkhoff, who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is suing Steve Baker, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter and self-proclaimed investigative reporter who baselessly claimed that Kerkhoff planted pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee buildings in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the insurrection.

The 124-page defamation lawsuit was filed in Virginia against Blaze Media, Baker’s employer — and owner of the right-wing Glenn Beck podcast — on Tuesday and names Baker as well as reporter Joseph Hanneman.

According to Kerkhoff, Blaze Media published an article last November alleging they had “forensic gait analysis” that determined Kerkhoff was a “98% match” to the person who appeared in surveillance footage planting the pipe bombs.

But Kerkhoff’s lawyers say Baker and Hanneman “simply made it up,” and that not only was she nowhere near the RNC or DNC on Jan. 5, she was at home with her boyfriend and dog and has cell phone footage to prove it.

The FBI arrested a suspect in the case, Brian Cole of Virginia, in December.

In a statement Tuesday, Jon Kaiman, an attorney for Kerkhoff, told HuffPost the lawsuit was a “righteous and important case to set the record straight.”

“We are honored to represent her and hold accountable those who published these damaging falsehoods,” Kaiman said.

Baker and Hanneman have long claimed that the Jan. 6 attack was an inside job. Since as far back as February 2021, Baker published pieces claiming the riot was a bid by “occupying elites” of the Capitol to “capture an unprecedented amount of political territory.” Hanneman, once a reporter for The Epoch Times, produced a documentary that blamed Capitol Police officers for provoking rioters as well.

After Baker appeared on Beck’s podcast last November, however, Kerkhoff and her attorneys say that’s when things really went off the rails.

Baker made a series of false claims, including an assertion that through “forensic gait analysis,” he was able to identify the person who planted the pipe bombs. Baker also told Beck that he and Hanneman were “drilling down” on the identities of police officers they believed were involved in Jan. 6 and that when he took his “investigation” about the pipe bombs to a “federal source,” that official remarked, “She’s one of us!”

“This statement — which also served as the headline for the November 5 Article—indicated two things to Blaze Media’s audience: first, that the target of their reporting was a woman, and second, that she was a member of federal law enforcement,” Kerkhoff’s lawsuit states.

Baker and Hanneman teased the story out, saying they would only release the pipe bomber’s name “after the relevant agencies have battened down the hatches” and that there would be “breadcrumbs” for people to follow in coming stories.

“This would prove to be a key (manufactured) component of their attempt to (only) facially bolster their claims,” Kerkhoff’s lawyers wrote.

None of what Baker or Hanneman did was investigative reporting, according to Kerkhoff and her legal team. Rather, it was a “carefully orchestrated” media campaign where Baker and Hanneman promised “bombshells” or patently made things up in order to “lend a facade of legitimacy to their accusations for ratings and reader interactions.”

According to Kerkhoff’s lawyers, the men relied on sources with no credible experience for the “forensic gait analysis” and falsely claimed — to strengthen the connection between her and the gait of the suspect seen on video — that she walked with a limp.

“Ms. Kerkhoff does not walk with a limp. She has run multiple marathons since 2016, finishing four out of the five in fewer than four hours. She accomplished stellar marks in police physical fitness training, even setting a female record for physical fitness. Defendants did not disclose whether or how they took these facts into account in their analysis. On information and belief, Defendants did not even know these facts when they ran the analysis, because Defendants never asked Ms. Kerkhoff to comment on their false accusations against her,” the lawsuit states.

Kerkhoff says Baker never took his “investigative findings” to the FBI because he believed the agency was “actively engaged in a cover-up” of Jan. 6. Instead, she alleges Baker “shared his ‘tip’ with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) only weeks before his planned reporting” and that this was essential to the plan to smear her.

“Standing alone, gait analysis was not enough to name Ms. Kerkhoff. But, if Defendants could reference an existing investigation in line with their own conclusions, they could create an illusion of credibility for their claims. So, Baker set out to manufacture the exact corroborative evidence he needed by taking his ‘tip’ to an agency he handpicked—because he believed it would be most likely to entertain his flawed investigation and false conclusions,” the lawsuit states.

When Baker went to ODNI, employees drafted a memorandum concerning his claims. An incomplete draft of that memo started circulating among officials in the Trump administration, according to the lawsuit. The draft was eventually shared with the CIA, where Kerkhoff was working in November 2025.

Her life “irrevocably changed” from that moment on, she said.

FBI agents interrogated Kerkhoff and said they were investigating “online chatter” that she was the pipe bomber. She was forced to take a polygraph test. She consented to searches of her home, phone and car. Her boyfriend was interviewed and his home was searched too. Bomb-sniffing dogs went through her house while agents rifled through her property for hours. She was investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., the lawsuit recounts.

She was put on administrative leave by the CIA for almost two weeks before she was allowed to return. It was determined she had “nothing to do with the pipe bombs,” her lawyers said.

Baker and Hanneman did not retract their claims even after former U.S. pardon attorney and director of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group Ed Martin specifically denounced rumors that Kerkhoff was the suspect in a Nov. 7 post on X.

CBS News reported on Nov. 25 that Baker’s claims were easily debunked thanks to Kerkhoff providing the outlet with an alibi: It was a video of her playing with her dog at home when the pipe bombs were being placed.

“Ms. Kerkhoff was never given the opportunity to provide this video to Defendants before they published their Articles because Defendants never sought her comment before publishing their false and defamatory accusations,” the lawsuit states.

Baker, Hanneman and Blaze only “quietly updated” the article with a sentence saying that CBS News had ruled out her involvement and that she was cleared thanks to the video alibi. After Cole was arrested and accused of planting the explosive devices, Blaze Media removed the text but not the headlines of two articles. They also swapped out a picture of Kerkhoff’s face with CCTV footage of the hooded pipe bomber.

Kerkhoff says neither Baker nor Hanneman has come off the accusations against her and that they are now suggesting Cole is a “patsy.” The men have also launched an online fundraising campaign to continue their “reporting.”

So far, the lawsuit notes, they have raised $20,000.

According to the lawsuit, Kerkhoff’s life, in the meantime, has been destroyed: Personal relationships have suffered and once friendly neighbors now avoid her. Former friends have told her “they may never know the truth,” and she fears for her safety daily. Kerkhoff, who was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her service on Jan. 6, says she only leaves her home wearing a “baseball hat pulled low over her eyes, worried that someone would identify and harass and even harm her.”

An attorney for Baker and Hanneman did not immediately return a request for comment.

Baker, who was pardoned by Trump along with more than 1,500 other Jan. 6 defendants, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to four misdemeanor charges tied to Jan. 6, including trespassing and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors and FBI agents accused Baker of antagonizing police who were trying to repel rioters. He was inside the Capitol for 37 minutes, according to an FBI affidavit.

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