The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., announced Monday that it will not prosecute nine staffers of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert who were arrested last month and charged with illegally entering a building on Capitol grounds while recording interviews for the CBS show.
Soon after, guests on Fox News whined about what they viewed as a double standard, given that hundreds of suspects in the Jan. 6 insurrection have been prosecuted.
Fox host Jesse Watters began by calling the staffers “insurrectionists,” similar to what others on his network had to say upon learning of their arrests. Watters noted that the attorney who dropped the charges, Matthew Graves, was appointed by President Joe Biden and works under Attorney General Merrick Garland.
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“Turns out, he’s also the prosecutor investigating January 6,” Watters continued. “Is he giving those guys the same treatment?”
For commentary, Watters turned to a frustrated Ned Ryun, the founder and CEO of American Majority, a conservative non-profit organization.
“It’s unbelievable hypocrisy by Graves,” Ryun grumbled. “To highlight the hypocrisy, more than 200 people have been charged and have pleaded guilty to parading on January 6, which is a petty offense class B misdemeanor, even though they walked through open doors, in front of police, were not asked to leave. Yet Graves has actually recommended charges and sentencing of 60 to 90 days in jail.”
“But not with Colbert,” Ryun continued, saying the potential punishment for staffers if proven guilty would have been up to 180 days imprisonment. He later claimed that with the right political connections, “everything gets dropped and it’s just a shrug as you walk away.”
The same opinion was voiced during Hannity, where the namesake host asked a former Trump White House press secretary how things would have turned out if those arrested had instead been dubbed the “Kayleigh McEnany Nine” or the “Sean Hannity Nine.” “Would we get the same treatment?”
“Of course we wouldn’t. There’s one standard for Democrats. There’s one standard for Republicans. You see it all the time in the press with coverage of President Trump,” replied McEnany. “It’s just common sense. We all know that at this point.”
