Colbert: How dare you cast aspersions on Louie Gohmert's asparagus!

Thursday night on "The Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert replayed one of the stranger moments from Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday. At the end of a heated exchange with holder, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) accused the AG of attempting to "cast aspersions on my asparagus."

"Folks, I hope you know," he began, "for Obama watchdogs like me, the last week of scandals has been like Christmas morning."

President Barack Obama, said Colbert, has been in "full damage-control" mode over Benghazi, the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups and Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to seize months of phone records from AP reporters in a leak probe.

Colbert played video of news anchors describing Holder's testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday as a "grilling," as the AG was "peppered with questions."

"Mmmm," said the host. "Grilled and peppered. That would explain why Darryl Issa was wearing that 'Kiss the Cook' apron."

Holder appeared to be holding his own, said Colbert, until he sparred with congressman and "magical talking cantaloupe" Rep. Louis Gohmert. Gohmert insisted that the FBI under Holder's direction had dropped the ball in tracking Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers blamed for the bombing of the Boston marathon.

Holder pushed back against Gohmert's accusations, saying that, unless someone in the FBI leaked confidential information to the congressman, Gohmert could not possibly know what he was talking about.

“You don’t know what the FBI did,” said Holder. “You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough, or taken exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That is all.”

Gohmert got flustered in the back and forth with Holder and the committee chair and accused the AG of "trying to cast aspersions on my asparagus."

"How dare you cast aspersion on that man's asparagus!" bellowed Colbert. "What is next, sir? Libeling his lettuce? Questioning his quinoa? Arguing with his arugula? Repudiating his rutabaga?! Vilifying his vinaigrette before drizzling it on his scandal salad?"

"Clearly, America," he said, "we are going to need a lot more hearings on Asparagus-gate, because the more I digest this, the worse it smells."

Watch the clip, embedded below via Comedy Central: