The US Secret Service also signaled to Mulaney for joking that he “didn’t like the Founding Fathers immensely”.
John Mulaney raised his eyebrows in early December, after revealing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that he was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service for a joke he made during his Saturday Night Live monologue on February 2020. Now, the official US Secret Service files obtained by the Associated Press detail the extent of the investigation into Mulaney. The AP, which used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the files, reports that the bureau contacted NBC about the “SNL” joke, but never interviewed Mulaney directly.
Mulaney’s “SNL” joke revolved around the concept of leap years, as the host noted that leap years began under Julius Caesar. Mulaney added: “Another thing that happened under the government of Julius Caesar, he was such a powerful maniac that all the senators grabbed knives and stabbed him to death. It would be interesting if we brought it back now. “
According to the AP: “Two days after Mulaney’s ‘SNL’ monologue, officers contacted Thomas McCarthy, head of global security and senior vice president at NBC Universal, to express the agency’s desire to discuss the joke with lawyers of the comedian. The Secret Service file included a Breitbart report entitled ‘SNL: John Mulaney jokes that senators should stab Trump like Julius Caesar.’ The Mulaney investigation was opened in March and closed in December. “
According to the Secret Service files, Mulaney “made no direct threats to Trump” and therefore no transgressions were found on the part of the comedian. The archives included other jokes from Mulaney’s “SNL” monologue, including a part where the comedian joked that he “didn’t like the Founding Fathers immensely”, adding, “I hate it when people say, ‘God never created such a good group of men than the Founding Fathers. ‘Yes, the ’92 Bulls. That’s a perfect metaphor for the United States. When I was a boy, the United States was like Michael Jordan in 1992. Now, the United States is like Michael Jordan now . ”
Speaking to Kimmel in December, Mulaney said: “The person who examined me was very understanding that the joke had nothing to do with Donald Trump because it was an elliptical reference to him. I didn’t say anything about him. In terms of risk assessment, no one who has ever looked at me thought I registered above one. “
“I said I’ve been making jokes about him since 2007, so I’ve been making fun of him for 13 years,” added Mulaney. “They said that if it was a joke, then I was cleared by the Secret Service.”
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