Nine people working for Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show will not be prosecuted by officials after they were arrested for tresspass at a Congressional building last month.
The US Capitol Police (USCP) on Monday said the US attorney’s office for the district of Columbia declined to prosecute the nine staffers, earlier detained at the Longworth House Office Building.
“The United States Capitol Police was just informed the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is declining to prosecute the case. We respect the decision that office has made,” the police force said in a statement.
“The USCP arrested nine people for Unlawful Entry charges because members of the group had been told several times before they entered the Congressional buildings that they had to remain with a staff escort inside the buildings and they failed to do so.”
The show’s production team included Robert Smigel, a puppeteer who is the voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
The team was interviewing politicians after the third public hearing by the House panel investigating the Jan 6 Capitol riot.
The staffers were “unescorted and without Congressional ID” on the sixth floor of the building that was closed to the public at the time.
In a statement, the US attorney’s office said the decision to not prosecute them was taken after “comprehensive review of all of the evidence and the relevant legal authority”.
“The individuals, who entered the building on two separate occasions, were invited by Congressional staffers to enter the building in each instance and were never asked to leave by the staffers who invited them, though, members of the group had been told at various points by the U.S. Capitol Police that they were supposed to have an escort.”
“The Office would be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these invited guests were guilty of the crime of unlawful entry because their escort chose to leave them unattended.”
Colbert addressed the incident on his show on 20 June.
“Thursday evening, after they’d finished their interviews, [my staff] were doing some last-minute puppetry and jokey make-em-ups in a hallway, when Triumph and my folks were approached and detained by Capitol Police, which actually is not surprising,” he said.
“The Capitol Police are much more cautious than they were 18 months ago and for a very good reason. If you don’t know what that reason is I know what news network you watch.”
