Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah found William Barr's Senate testimony frustrating. So Colbert stepped in.

Stephen Colbert grills William Barr, virtually
(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/The Late Show)

"Happy Bill Barr Day, everybody," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "I got you all the traditional gift: a bucket of lies." Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee grilling of the attorney general "was incredibly frustrating to watch, filled with legalistic hair-splitting and political ass-covering," Colbert said. "The hearing was always going to be contentious — we knew that" because on Tuesday night we found out that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had complained to Barr that his four-page summary of Mueller's report didn't accurately capture the "context, nature, and substance" of Mueller's work.

"Context, nature, substance — that is ... everything," Colbert said. "That's like saying: 'I really like what you did with this, you know, car — except the wheels, the engine, and the car.'" Still, he added, "it's nice to know that Mueller is as mad as we are."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.