Stephen Colbert Grills James Comey During Mock Senate Hearing

On Thursday, Stephen Colbert and his staff celebrated #ComeyDay in the traditional way: “watching TV and writing jokes as fast as we can.”

One day after performing his own interpretation of James Comey’s written testimony, the Late Show host decided to join the hearing itself by inserting himself into the Senate panel that questioned the former FBI director.

“Mr. Chairman, can I just cut in here?” he asked, interrupting committee chairman Richard Burr. “Stephen Colbert. I’d like to thank my colleagues for allowing me to be in here. And I do call you my colleagues even though I’m not a senator.”

He proceeded to ask Comey if he has any evidence that President Trump “colluded with Russia.” When Comey said he couldn’t answer that question in an “open setting,” Colbert asked if he would tell him in a pillow fort. “Let’s say you had an orange cat, really fat and lies a lot,” he added. “Would the cat enjoy drinking vodka?”

Later, during his monologue, Colbert dug into Comey’s testimony even further, including the moment when he said he had “served at the pleasure of the president.” The host added, “And then when I read the Russia dossier, I saw what gave the president pleasure and I thought, oh no!”

Comey also said in the hearing that Trump’s original reasoning for firing him, having to do with his handling of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation, “didn’t make sense” given “all the water that had gone under the bridge since those hard decisions were made.”

“Oh, I remember that bridge,” Colbert said. “I think it’s the one they threw Hillary off of to see if she was a witch.”

And finally, there was something about Comey’s description of Trump’s efforts to “defame” the FBI — “lies, plain and simple” — that gave Colbert an idea. “That would be a good name for a Trump family law firm,” he said, putting up a photo of the president and his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.