Seth Meyers calls out Lindsey Graham for basically botching the Barr hearing

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Late Night with Seth Meyers)

last updated 2 May 2019

For those who missed Attorney General William Barr's testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Seth Meyers gave a quick rundown, focusing on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and his inability to ask any hard questions during the hearing he chaired.

After two years of waiting, the public got its first taste of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report in late March, in the form of a four-page memo written by Barr, giving his summary of the 448-page document. This was excellent PR for President Trump, Meyers said on Wednesday's Late Night, because it shaped media coverage and let Trump crow over and over again that he was exonerated.

Barr left out important parts of the report, like the fact that it described 10 times Trump may have obstructed justice. He also never mentioned during a congressional hearing, despite being asked by Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), that Mueller had issues with his memo, as described in a letter Mueller sent to the Justice Department in late March. "There's no way you just forgot about a letter from Robert Mueller," Meyers said. "That's like forgetting about a note on your windshield that says, 'I know what you did last summer.'"

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Graham had a poor showing throughout the hearing, Meyers said. He didn't ask any tough questions, spent much of his time harping on Hillary Clinton, bragged about not even reading the entire Mueller report, and argued that Trump only attempted to obstruct justice, and that's okay. "I'm no lawyer, but last time I checked, attempting to do something illegal is also a crime," Meyers said. "If you get arrested for chasing a guy down the street with a knife, you can't go to court and say, 'Sure, I tried to kill him, but he was too fast!'" Watch the video — which includes a clip of Graham in 1999 completely contradicting the Graham of today — below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.