-A congressional hearing into Joe Biden’s handling
of classified information backfired on Republicans
when the Special Counsel confirmed
that Biden actually had a photographic recall
and conceded that there were clear reasons
why Donald Trump was indicted while Biden wasn’t.
Meanwhile, a key witness in the Trump case came forward
and revealed the suspicious behavior
he saw in a bombshell interview.
For more on this, it’s time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
For some reason, Attorney General Merrick Garland
gave Republicans exactly what they wanted
when he appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel
to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Hur is a registered Republican
who clerked for a conservative Supreme Court justice
and was originally nominated to be
a U.S. attorney by Donald Trump. In fact, he reportedly got help
from right wing operatives connected to Donald Trump
to prepare for his testimony yesterday.
Although I can’t imagine what kind of advice
he got from Trumpworld.
Did they show him Trump’s courtroom sketches to prepare?
Alright, the best way to make yourself seem
trustworthy and credible during testimony
is to grimace like you’re passing a gallstone,
grimace like you’re passing a second, bigger gallstone,
grimace like you just saw your wife having sex with grimace,
then hold your hands up like
you’re just waiting for them to slap the cuffs on you.
In fact, the lawyer Hur got to help him
represented three Trump White House officials,
including Steve Bannon. If I ever need legal help,
I personally would not hire a guy
who also represented Steve Bannon.
Steve and I have nothing in common
except that we are both pioneers in the field
of dressing casually for jobs where most people wear suits.
Although I prefer to wear my clothes
sequentially instead of, you know, all at once.
[ Laughter ]
I would never wear two collared shirts on top of each other
the way Bannon does, a look popular
with '80s movie villains who say things like,
"Aren’t you a little poor for the yacht club, Gordo?"
[ Laughter ]
The point is, Republicans got exactly the kind of prosecutor
they would want -- a registered Republican with a history
in right wing politics and connections to GOP figures.
And yet, even that guy wrote in his report
that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,
and the evidence suggests that Biden
did not willfully retain these documents.
Hur even went so far as to explain in very specific detail
why Trump was charged but Biden wasn’t.
Hur did make this distinction in his report,
and I quote here, "Several material distinctions
between Mr. Trump’s case and Mr. Biden’s are clear."
Special counsel Robert Hur’s report even included
this distinction.
"After being given multiple chances...
and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite.
According to the indictment, he not only refused to return
the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice
by enlisting others to destroy evidence
and then to lie about it.
In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents
to the National Archives, and the Department of Justice,
consented to the search of multiple locations
including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview,
and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.
-Yeah, that was such a concise and logical summary
of the situation that I’m surprised
he didn’t end it with a callback clip,
"And this has been 'A Closer Look.'"
by the way, that’s how long the "Closer Looks" would be
if we took out all the insane tangents,
but don’t hold your breath, baby.
The differences between the two cases are obvious.
Biden gave his documents back immediately
and cooperated in every possible way,
while Trump lied, obstructed investigators,
moved documents, insisted they were his,
and kept them hidden in that weird Mar-a-Lago bathroom
that has one fancy thing for every cheap thing.
Beautiful chandelier,
plastic trash can with bags showing,
crystal light fixture,
Kleenex still in the box,
ornate gold mirror,
nursing home toilet,
Fine marble countertop,
weird high windows you got to jump to see out of.
And of course, worst of all, the $5 shower curtain.
This just speaks to how brazen Trump was.
The only reason to have a shower curtain like that
is to hide [bleep] in the shower.
But he was like, "No, you can stack the boxes in front."
Why does he have a cheap shower curtain in there?
That’s how you hide a risque poster in your college dorm
when your parents come to visit. What’s back there?
A poster with an alien smoking weed that says,
take me to your dealer.
[ Laughter ]
That was pretty good. [ Laughs ]
Do you not get it, Gordo?
[ Laughter ]
And yet, amazingly, Republicans actually think this makes
Trump look good. Here’s what James Comer,
the GOP chairman of the oversight committee,
said last night on Fox.
-You look at how Donald Trump is being treated.
He had documents in one location behind a locked door.
-Okay, first of all,
the bathrooms in a person’s house
are usually only locked if someone is in there.
So the Republican argument is basically,
don’t worry, our national security secrets
were safe as long as Donald Trump was in the can.
Which sure, based on his diet is probably most of the time.
But still he’s got to come out to eat.
Second, none of that is true.
Trump had more than 300 classified documents
scattered around an active social club
with over 150 employees,
where anyone can pay to be a member
or attend a social event, like a fundraiser or a wedding
or a pre-funeral for Rudy Giuliani.
"Hey, Rudy, we’re going to put you
in the casket now to save time."
[ As Rudy] "Hey, I just got evicted from my apartment,
so this is great, and it’s bigger."
-Also, I have no idea why you’d want to have
your wedding at Mar-a-Lago, of all places.
I mean, maybe you couldn’t afford Chuck E. Cheese,
but that’s not fair.
A wedding at Chuck E. Cheese would [bleep] kick ass.
For one thing, the animatronic Chuck
won’t interrupt your wedding to rant
about voting machines or windmills killing birds.
-You want to see a bird graveyard?
Go under a windmill someday.
-Yeah, you’re not going to get a Chuck E. Cheese tangent
like that from old Robert Hur.
You wouldn’t have the courage.
So Hur was everything Republicans
could have hoped for, but they were still mad at him.
Sean Hannity even compared it to another investigation
Republicans are still obsessed with.
-Today, to me, was the equivalent of July 2016
and -- and James Comey going out there saying,
yeah, Hillary had top secret classified information,
33,000 deleted emails, BleachBit, hammers,
devices, everything we learned,
but no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.
Is that pretty similar?
-That’s very similar. Exact same.
-Oh, my God, you guys are still talking about
Hillary Clinton all these years later.
Get over it, dudes. You’re like people
who are still complaining about the ending of "Lost"
when smart people know "Lost" never ended.
I don’t have time to explain it now,
so check out my two hour YouTube video
"Lost" is still going,
you’re just not trying hard enough to see it.
There’s no comparison to the Trump case.
In fact, a previously unnamed witness in the Trump indictment
just came forward and revealed to the world
that he saw some very shady behavior involving boxes
of classified documents being moved onto a plane.
-I just spoke exclusively with one of the central witnesses
and one of the biggest cases, criminal cases,
I should note in American history,
the Trump classified documents case.
Until now, he has been known to the world
as Trump Employee 5,
as a Mar-a-Lago valet in Special Counsel
Jack Smith’s superseding indictment.
He’s referenced six times in it,
and he has never spoken out publicly until now.
-We got to the airport.
I ended up loading all the luggage I had
and he had a bunch of boxes.
-You noticed that he had boxes?
-Oh, yeah. They were the boxes that were in the indictment,
the white banker’s boxes.
That’s what I remember loading.
-How many boxes was it?
-They asked me in the interview,
and I believe it was like 10 to 15 is what I remember.
-Did you ever think to yourself,
"Why were there so many boxes at Mar-a-Lago?"
-For me, I’m just thinking, oh, the former president,
he has a lot of stuff he likes to lug around with him.
-Do you ever remember seeing those boxes
come back to Mar-a-Lago?
-I don’t. I do not.
-Wait, so boxes of classified documents
were loaded onto a plane
and never returned to Mar-a-Lago.
Where are they now? Trump tower, Russia?
Are they just doing laps on a luggage belt at Newark Airport?
Oh, God. Was it an Alaska Airlines flight?
Oh, no.
Oh, that would explain why everyone in the Portland area
is suddenly an expert on nuclear submarines.
[ Oregon accent ] I almost built my own nuke,
but the last part was covered in ketchup stains.
That’s my Oregon accent. Hey.
Hey, you’re in Portland now, baby.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] I have a real ear for regions.
Also, can we go back to this part?
-He has a lot of stuff he likes to lug around with him.
-Of course he does. Look at this lugger.
If Steve Harvey asked you to name something Donald Trump
looks like he does in his spare time,
lug would definitely be a top five answer on the board.
Even the way he walks looks like someone lugging
two invisible suitcases.
So that’s the reality of the Trump case
versus the Biden case, but of course,
the media latched on
to Hur's completely gratuitous claim
that Biden would present himself to a jury as a sympathetic,
well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,
a claim that was contradicted by the transcript
of Biden’s interview and by Hur yesterday himself
when he was asked about Biden’s memory.
-You said to President Biden,
"You have...appear to have a photographic understanding
and recall of the House."
Did you say that to President Biden?
-Those words do appear on page 47 of the transcript.
-Photographic is what you said. Is that right?
-That word does appear on page 47 of the transcript.
-Never appeared in your report, though.
Is that correct? The word photographic.
-That does not appear in my report.
-Wait, I’m sorry.
Joe Biden has a photographic understanding and recall,
but you didn’t put that in your report? Why?
That’s way more shocking than saying
he has a poor memory. He doesn’t surprise me at all
that an 81-year-old has trouble remembering some names or dates.
But if you’re telling me Joe Biden has
a photographic recall, then that is
the twist of the [bleep] century.
That should be breaking news on CNN.
Although Biden does seem like one of those grandpas
who remembers exactly what temperature he had
the thermostat set to in every room
before you messed with it.
[ As Biden ] Folks. Hey, folks, folks, you got the living room
jacked up to 72 degrees.
I had a cool 68.
I’m not kidding around here.
You got to put it back, Jack.
I don’t want my ice cream to melt.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Now to contrast how well their brains
functioned, Democrats at yesterday’s hearing
aired not one but two montages
of Trump glitching at his rallies.
And while they were effective, I got to say
I was a little irked. That’s our thing, guys.
We’ve been doing that for nine years.
Our researchers have spent so much time
sifting through videotape of Trump’s brain exploding
they’re scarred for life.
You cannot outdo us, Congress,
when it comes to a Trump montage.
So don’t try because we can always out montage you.
In fact, I’m going to prove it right now.
Hopefully this won’t be too long.
You guys watch and I’ll keep myself occupied.
Roll it, Alex.
-They are weaponizing law enforcement
for high level election interference
against Joe Biden’s top and only political appointment.
A guy named me.
China has total respect for Donald Trump
and for Donald Trump’s very, very large, a brain.
Saudi Arabia and Russia will [stammers] ah...
10,000 known or suspec-- gang members.
The wheel is older than the wall, you know that?
Every single car out there,
even the really expensive ones.
Controlled by large junors.
Unelected regulators and regulators.
Our hope is a word and world,
authority and authoritarian powers.
Beating expectations in the House
for the Midtown and mid term year.
They sacrifice every day for the furniture
and future of their children.
When they gaze upon your Semites,
Yosemites, towering sequoias.
We did with Obama.
We won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won.
They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania.
You know how you spell us, right?
You spell us U-S. I just picked that up.
I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges.
The oranges of the investigation,
the beginnings. The Mueller report,
I wish covered the oranges, how it started.
One of the great memories of all time.
It’s called, like, up here.
Ding, boom, this is me. I hear bing.
If you have a windmill anywhere near your house,
congratulations.
They say the noise causes cancer.
You tell me that one, okay? [ Imitating windmill ]
Nikki Haley is in charge of security.
Nancy Pelosi, or Nancy as I call her.
We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple.
Did you just see [indistinct] It’s an unbelievable.
Now you have voter ID to buy a loaf of bread.
People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, pshh, pom.
God bless the United [slurs] States.
-Oh, look, I drew an entirely new Trump courtroom sketch.
[ Cheers and applause ]
There is obviously no equivalence between these two,
either in the way they handled classified documents
or in the way their brains function.
Don’t take it from me.
Take it from Robert Hur and congressional Democrats,
although we can certainly back them up,
because when it comes to Trump’s most embarrassing moments,
we here at Late Night have a...
-Photographic understanding and recall.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Laughter ]
Or don’t.