When he hosted Saturday Night Live Last February, comedian John Mulaney joked during his opening monologue about “powerful maniac” Julius Caesar being stabbed to death by “all senators”.
“It would be an interesting thing if we brought it back now,” Mulaney told the audience.
The comedian said the joke was definitely not about President Donald Trump. But the Secret Service saw it differently.
On March 1, the day after the show, the agency’s protective intelligence and assessment division opened an investigative file to investigate “inappropriate statements about President Trump”.
Mulaney revealed the details of the Secret Service inquiry during an appearance last month on Jimmy Kimmel’s chat show.
His revelation prompted BuzzFeed News to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Secret Service.
On Tuesday, the agency turned 27 pages. The file says that a Secret Service research expert notified the agency’s New York office on March 1, 2020, “for situational awareness”, about Mulaney’s monologue, which was “gaining considerable attention”.
“Although no direct threats have been made, due to popularity, it is likely that citizens will report it,” say the documents, which include news about Mulaney de Breitbart’s monologue and Fox News.
Although records indicate that the agency stopped before launching a full investigation, they also reveal that on March 2, a Secret Service agent contacted Thomas McCarthy, head of global security and senior vice president at NBC, “to express the desire of the agency to discuss the incident mentioned above with Mulaney’s lawyers. “
Records say the agency has not contacted Mulaney and has not recommended any further action.
However, during his appearance in KimmelMulaney said he spoke to someone at the agency who understood that his joke “had nothing to do with Donald Trump because it was an elliptical reference to him.”
“I didn’t say anything about him,” said Mulaney, adding that he has been playing with Trump for over a decade. “In terms of risk assessment, no one who has ever looked at me thought I registered above 1.”
Secret Service documents say Mulaney’s file was closed four days after it opened on March 5. It was updated in December, when Mulaney recognized during his Kimmel appearance that the Secret Service had made contact.