When members of a production crew for the CBS show were arrested on June 16, they were filming a segment featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a cigar-chomping puppet dog voiced by comedian Robert Smigel, who was among those arrested. Mr. Colbert later said on his show that they were guilty of “high jinks intended to mock.” The arrests, in a hallway of the Longworth House office building, were notable in part because they came shortly after the start of a televised hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, in which supporters of President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol complex. . The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a brief statement Monday that it would not pursue misdemeanor charges against the nine people arrested by Capitol Police because the case was not strong enough. Crew members had been invited into the building on two separate occasions by congressional staffers who never asked them to leave, although Capitol Police told some members of the group they were supposed to be escorted, the statement said. In order to uphold the convictions on the trespassing charges, prosecutors would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that “these guests were guilty of the crime of trespassing because their escort chose to leave them unattended,” it said. . “We do not believe it is likely that the office will be able to obtain and sustain convictions on these charges,” the statement said, adding that the defendants will not be required to attend a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. The statement did not say who the production team had visited at the Longworth House Office Building. Mr. Colbert said on his show that the group had been invited to interview Democratic and Republican members of Congress about the Jan. 6 hearings. Representatives for the Justice Department and CBS did not immediately respond to requests for comment overnight. After the arrests last month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said the “Late Show” producers had committed “rebellion.” Mr Colbert said a few days later that such criticism amounted to a “disgraceful and grotesque insult” to the memory of those who lost their lives in the January 6 attack. “But who knows,” he joked on his show, “maybe there was a massive conspiracy to overthrow the United States government with a rubber Rottweiler.” Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.
