Stephen Colbert responded on Wednesday to a Proud Boys member charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot whose lawyer mentioned “The Late Show” host in a recent court filing.
Joseph Biggs’s attorney filed a motion last Thursday asking a judge to move Biggs’s trial out of Washington, D.C. in light of “unquestionably spectacular 24/7” media coverage of the Proud Boys “from Morning Joe to Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.”
“I do a lot of jokes about these violent fascists, but to hear that even one of them noticed — I feel so seen,” Colbert said on Wednesday night’s show, jokingly tearing up.
“You hate me,” he said. “You really hate me.”
Biggs’s legal team argued Colbert’s show, other media coverage and the televised hearings of the House select committee investigating the Capitol breach “saturate the jury pool of media-obsessive Washington, D.C.,” Colbert quoted on-air.
The committee zeroed in on the Proud Boys’ role in Jan. 6 in its first prime-time hearing last week, including testimony from a documentarian who was with the group’s members during the riot.
Colbert joked in his Wednesday monologue that the Proud Boys might have a better reputation in “1930s Berlin.”
“I want everyone in the potential jury pool to hear me when I say, you are going to jail you neo num-nut,” Colbert said.
“And if you don’t like it, you can come and get me,” he continued. “My name is Joe Scarborough and I love coffee. Welcome to the monkey house, brother.”
Federal prosecutors earlier this month charged Biggs and four other Proud Boys leaders with seditious conspiracy after previously charging them with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and various other counts.
Prosecutors will now have to prove that Biggs conspired “to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force.”
Both types of conspiracy charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.