The U.S. Secret Service released some details about its investigation into comedian John Mulaney over jokes he made about Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” last year.
Mulaney revealed for the first time that he was investigated by the Secret Service during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.
“In February, I made a joke that wasn’t about Donald Trump,” explained the comedian at the time. “The joke was about what a leap year was like and the leap year was started by Julius Caesar to correct the calendar, and another thing that happened to Caesar was that he was stabbed to death by a bunch of senators because he went crazy. And I said which is an interesting thing that can happen. ”
The file obtained by the AP through the Freedom of Information Act request showed that Mulaney was not kidding when he said he was being investigated. The agency contacted NBC, but did not interview the comedian for his investigation, which found no wrongdoing.
The joke was told during Mulaney’s opening monologue during the “Saturday Night Live” broadcast on February 29, 2020.
“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 an interesting thing if we brought it back now,” said Mulaney to audience laughter during his monologue.
JOHN MULANEY SAYS THAT HE HAS BEEN INVESTIGATED FOR THE SECRET SERVICE FOR JOKE ‘THAT WAS NOT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP’
John Mulaney made a joke on ‘Saturday Night Live’ that prompted him to be investigated by the Secret Service.
(Kyle Dubiel / NBC / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
The Secret Service noted other observations during the monologue, including: “I asked my lawyer if I could make this joke, he said, let me call another lawyer, and that lawyer said yes. I don’t insist on politics, but no I love the Founding Fathers immensely … I hate it when people think: God has never created such a large group of men as the Founding Fathers Yes, the Bulls of 92 … This is a perfect metaphor for the United States. it was a boy, the United States was like Michael Jordan in 1992. Now, the United States is like Michael Jordan now. “
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 the comedian’s lawyers.
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The Secret Service file included a Breitbart report entitled “SNL: John Mulaney jokes that senators should stab Trump like Julius Caesar.” The investigation into Mulaney opened in March and ended in December, five days after the comedian spoke about the situation on Kimmel’s show.
The Secret Service file notes that Mulaney made no direct threats to Trump.
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“The person who examined me understood very well that the joke had nothing to do with Donald Trump, because it was an elliptical reference to him,” Mulaney told Kimmel. “I didn’t say anything about him. In terms of risk assessment, no one who’s ever looked at me thought I was above one.”
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He added: “I said I have been joking about him since 2007, so I have been making fun of him for 13 years,” said Mulaney. “They said that if it’s a joke, then I’m cleared of the Secret Service.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.