Last Week Tonight host John Oliver has taken a swipe at Mel Gibson after a Department of Justice attorney suggested the actor was the reason she was fired.
DOJ pardon attorney Elizabeth G Oyer was asked two weeks ago to join a working group reviewing cases of individuals with past convictions who could be eligible to restore their gun rights.
After narrowing down the candidates to nine people with old convictions and a low risk of recidivism, Oyer said senior Justice Department officials asked her to add Gibson to the list, despite his 2011 misdemeanour conviction for domestic violence.
In a column for Rolling Stone, Oyer wrote: “No one has told me why I was fired. But the notice was delivered hours after I declined to recommend reinstating the gun rights of a famous friend of the president, the actor Mel Gibson, who has a history of violence against women.”
Oyer also told CNN: “When I came into work on Friday morning, I said to a colleague, I really think that Mel Gibson might be my downfall, and within hours of saying that, I was being escorted out of my office”
Speaking on Monday’s episode of Last Week Tonight (17 March), Oliver said: “Wow, that is, frankly, incredible. She got fired because she didn’t think Mel Gibson, best known for his work in screaming, should have guns.”
Oliver then told his viewers to visit Gibson’s Wikipedia page and read the various scandals surrounding the Braveheart actor. He also encouraged fans to look up Gibson’s father’s Wikipedia page, which the comedian called “spectacular”.
“Hutton Peter Gibson was an American conspiracy theorist, Holocaust denier, writer on sedevacantism - which is a belief that there hasn’t been a valid pope since 1958 - a World War II veteran, the Jeopardy! grand champion for 1968, and the father of 11 children, one of whom is the actor and director Mel Gibson,” said Oliver quoting the Wikipedia profile.
“That is a fascinating man,” Oliver added. “And imagine having so many terrible views that producing Mel Gibson is not the worst thing about you.”
Speaking to the New York Times, Oyer said: “Giving guns back to domestic abusers is a serious matter that, in my view, is not something that I could recommend lightly, because there are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms.
“He [a senior official] then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with president Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation.“
Gibson was named as one of Trump’s special envoys to Hollywood, along with Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone in a bid to make the US film industry “bigger, better and stronger than ever before!”
The Independent has contacted Mel Gibson’s representatives for comment.
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