Stephen Colbert could barely contain his excitement Wednesday night when he used his Late Show monologue to convey the news that the Justice Department has finally said that it is investigating former President Donald Trump for crimes surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“Aw, shucky ducky!” the host exclaimed as his live audience cheered. “It is about damn time. At this point, the investigators are like the last person at the office to catch on to a popular TV show.” (That joke seemed to borrow a recent premise from NBC’s Late Night, though Colbert chose Game of Thrones as his example while Seth Meyers went with Fleabag.)
As Colbert explained it, DOJ investigators are looking into charging Trump for “seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding” as well as “potential fraud associated with the false-electors scheme.”
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“Potential fraud?” he replied. “You generally don’t call something a ‘scheme’ and ‘false’ if it’s on the level.”
Ultimately, Colbert said he is “potentially very excited because all of this is potentially huge,” noting that no American president has ever been charged with a crime after leaving office.
“So what?” he asked. “Before John Wayne Gacy, no one ever executed a birthday clown. But it was the right thing to do.”
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