Stephen Colbert's comedy crew was warned "several times" it could not trespass on Capitol grounds, and its behavior in a congressional office building during an unauthorized nighttime visit was so boisterous it caused a Democratic congressman's staff to fear for his safety and call for emergency help, police say.
The description that authorities provided members of Congress this week — loud banging on doors, talk of a "cocaine orgy" and threats to place something under a congressman's door — is far different than the light-hearted account of "first-degree puppetry" that the CBS television comic offered after last month's high-profile arrest of his team.
The decision by the Biden Justice Department to decline prosecution of nine Colbert staffers for unlawful entry clearly upset the department, according to an official letter from the department's chief obtained by Just the News.
"It is unfortunate that despite all of the evidence the Department presented, including that the group or its leader had been told several times that they could not be in the buildings without an escort, that the U.S. Attorney's office declined to prosecute any members of the group for Unlawful Entry," Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger wrote Republican Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois and Jim Jordan of Ohio in a letter dated Tuesday.
Manger revealed in the letter that the nine members of Colbert's staff who were arrested June 16 for unauthorized access to a House office building had previously been rejected for press credentials by the House Radio/TV Gallery, had been warned multiple times they could not stay in Capitol buildings without an escort, and were ejected by police from the complex just hours before their arrest for violating building rules.
The chief also revealed that two of the nine staffers when arrested refused to cooperate, citing their Miranda rights, and that one of the staffers initially falsely told responding police officers the Colbert crew was "credentialed staff."
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