Perhaps because he’s stepping down later this year, Jon Stewart proved Thursday that he’s ready to strike a lot harder at the Obama administration.
The host of “The Daily Show” was baffled by the White House’s prosecution of several government whistleblowers, including former NSA executive Thomas Drake, who exposed wasteful spending and problems within the national security apparatus.
“What the fuck?” Stewart said. “I assume you mean the rarely enforced provision of the Espionage Act that rewards whistleblowers with millions of dollars and unlimited blowjobs.”
The host wanted to know to which foreign nation Drake sold his secrets to earn the charges, but it turned out Drake just shared unclassified documents with a reporter from the Baltimore Sun.
“To be fair, the government didn’t cart Drake off to jail on these trumped up charges, they just ruined him,” Stewart noted.
Drake said his struggles with the government cost him his income and his retirement money. He eventually took a part-time job at an Apple store.
“Apple store’s not a terrible place to work. At least he’s in a place that’s transparent,” Stewart said, showing an image of a one of Apple’s see-through stores.
Stewart got serious near the end.
“Of the eleven times in our entire history that the Espionage Act has been used against government workers sharing information with journalists, seven of them have been under this presidency,” he said.
Watch the clip, courtesy of Comedy Central:
