Stephen Colbert

“You know how for a couple years now, you’ve been thinking, ‘There’s probably bad stuff in the Mueller report that makes Donald Trump look terrible?’” asked Stephen Colbert at the top of Thursday’s Late Show, taped hours after the justice department released a redacted version of the over-400-page Mueller report. “But then three weeks ago, Attorney General Bill Barr put out his four-page valentine to Donald Trump, and then you thought, ‘Maybe I’m crazy.’

“I’m here to tell you: you’re not crazy.”

Colbert held up a textbook-sized printed copy of the report, which detailed the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the president’s obstruction of justice.

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Until Thursday morning, Congress and the general public hadn’t read the report, “and evidently, Bill Barr hadn’t read it either, ‘cause there’s some insane shit in here”, Colbert said.

Barr held a press conference on Thursday morning in which he downplayed the report’s damaging implications for the president. For instance, on the question of obstruction, Barr explained that what could be construed as intent was actually “the president lashing out in mindless rage”. (Barr’s words: “There is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks.”)

“Wait – when did feelings become a get out of jail free card?” Colbert mused, explaining Barr’s legal logic as: “Sure, my client’s actions might look like arson, but might I remind you: he was feeling tense, and who doesn’t relax in front of a roaring fire?”

According to the report, Trump was nervous about Mueller’s investigation, as he told Jeff Sessions, his attorney general at the time: “This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”

Why the concern? According to Mueller, even though his report didn’t establish collusion with Russia, Trump fretted that “a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes”.

“In other words,” Colbert translated, “Trump probably thought he broke the law, and that now his past was coming for him, like in that movie I Know What I Did Last Summer.”

Mueller’s report also said Trump campaign staffers knew that Russia’s illegal election meddling would benefit them, but they didn’t take criminal steps to help. Colbert translated again: “They were like the little dog on the kitchen floor, waiting for the big dog to knock the steak of democracy off the counter after they first went on television to say, ‘Big dog, if you’re listening, please release the steak.’”

Colbert then focused on the conclusion that “the president’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests”.

For instance, in the summer of 2017, Trump ordered the White House counsel, Don McGahn, to instruct the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, to fire Mueller; McGahn declined to deliver the message and threatened to resign because the president was ordering him to “do crazy shit”. “He had to see this coming – after all, that was Trump’s campaign slogan,” Colbert joked.

But perhaps the most incredible statement in the report, Colbert said, was that Mueller’s team could not clear the president of obstruction based on their findings. In other words, “Mueller would have found Trump innocent, if it had been possible in any way. But it was impossible to find that. That is the opposite of a witch-hunt.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers cautioned that “before we get into the report, let’s just review what we already know: for one thing, Mueller has already produced a staggering number of indictments and convictions of some of the president’s closest aides and advisers”.

He turned to images of convicted Trump associates Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and others. “There’s more criminals than a Hollywood PTA meeting,” he joked to headshots of Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman of college admissions scam fame.

Meyers also pointed to the “weird” delivery of the report: the justice department handed it to Congress on Thursday morning on CD-roms. “That’s right, a compact disc,” Meyers said. “They got the Mueller report the same way we all got Encarta.

“Seriously, this is how the government handles one of the most anticipated documents in recent political history? Was it a report or did they just send Congress a mixtape?”

Combing through the report’s details, Meyers said, “It’s a lot more damning and nuanced than Barr made it sound. For example, on obstruction of justice, there’s that question of whether or not Trump had corrupt intent.” Meyers then turned to the president’s own admission, via the Mueller report, that the investigation marked “the end of my presidency. I’m fucked”.

“Ugh, this is the one time we wanted you to be right, and you weren’t,” Meyers lamented.