“Happy Bill Barr Day, everybody! I got you the traditional gift: a bucket of lies,” joked Stephen Colbert at the top of his program.
The Late Show host then offered his take on Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary “grilling” of “man-trying-to-hold-in-his-burp-until-the-elevator-door-opens, William Barr.”
“It was incredibly frustrating to watch—filled with legalistic hair-splitting and political ass-covering. I’d say it made me want to wring his neck but I’d need five more hands,” said Colbert.
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Attorney General Barr was repeatedly questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee over his curious four-page memo “summarizing” the Mueller Report, wherein he appeared to let Trump off the hook, leading the president to boast of “complete and total exoneration”—a claim that appears in doubt, if Mueller himself is to be believed.
“Last night, The Washington Post reported that three days after Barr’s four-page summary, Mueller wrote Barr a letter complaining that Barr ‘did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance’ of Mueller’s work,” Colbert explained. “Context, nature, and substance. That is… everything. That’s like saying, I really like what you did with this car, except the wheels, the engine, and… the car.”
“Again,” Colbert continued, “Mueller sent his letter of complaint to Barr on March 27, but on April 10, in Senate testimony under oath, Barr said this.”
Colbert then through to a clip of Barr testifying—under oath: “I don’t know whether Bob Mueller supported my conclusion.”
“Yes, you do!” the comedian exclaimed, before mimicking Barr: “I don’t know if he really supported my conclusion. I mean, what is knowledge? Can we really know anything?”
