Stephen Colbert’s A Late Show returned to live TV following Biden’s Wednesday night speech to Congress—you know, the one that Ted Cruz slept through? While the bulk of Colbert’s opening monologue was dedicated to analyzing Biden’s hits and misses, it was clear that the host was excited to move on to his next segment: The FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani.
Federal investigators arrived at Giuliani’s door with a warrant to search both his apartment and office bright and early on Wednesday, around 6 a.m. (which is never a good sign). Even Colbert took issue with the early door-knock, saying that everyone knows “Rudy’s not himself until he’s had his first cup of hot breakfast wine.” (Could that have been the mysterious liquid seen dripping from his head back in November?)
Though Giuliani did his best to downplay the seriousness of the FBI assembling before the sun had even risen to confiscate his electronic devices—first blaming it on “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” then issuing a statement complaining yet again about Hunter Biden—he was getting much warmer on the latter try. According to Colbert, the FBI’s investigation of Giuliani “goes back to the last presidential election and Rudy’s attempts to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden in Ukraine with the help of his two Soviet-born business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.”
Parnas and Fruman were arrested on the same matter in 2019, and specifically questioned about whether Giuliani had illegally assisted them in lobbying “the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs.” It’s not known whether Parnas and Fruman flipped on Giuliani, but the Feds generally don’t come a-knocking unless they’re convinced you’ve done something really bad. Colbert, for one, is hoping that’s the case—if only so that his new segment, “Rudy, Rudy, Fresh & Screwed-y” (complete with an animated Rudy and a requisite fart sound) can become a regular thing.
“This raid is a big deal,” Colbert confirmed. “The FBI doesn’t just pop into your apartment to borrow a cup of justice. It means there’s probable cause that Giuliani committed a federal crime,” which Colbert admitted was a “tough break for Rudy”—but only because “The only lawyer dumb enough to defend him just got raided by the Feds.”
Colbert issued a final piece of advice to any known Giuliani associates: “Anything involved with Rudy Giuliani is under scrutiny, so lawyer up if you own a landscaping company between a crematorium and a Dildo Hut.” Consider yourselves warned.
You can watch Colbert’s full monologue above (the Giuliani segment starts around the 9:55 mark).
