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Colbert donates super PAC funds to charity

Comedian Stephen Colbert's massive super PAC cash stash won't fund political attack ads or anything of the sort.

Instead, it's going to six charitable organizations.

Colbert announced Thursday night on Comedy Central's Cobert Report that the $773,704.03 his now-defunct Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow super PAC, which last month donated to the the nonprofit Colbert Super PAC SHH Institute, has apparently in turn donated the money to a group called the "Ham Rove Memorial Fund" — a group named for a canned ham that vaguely resembled Republican political strategist Karl Rove.

"Ham Rove" served as Colbert's super PAC "chief strategist and principal lunch meat" until Colbert carved him up on a recent program before feeding him to a dog.

In an apparent final act of a nearly year-and-a-half-long gag about the influence of money in politics, Colbert said the Ham Rove Memorial Foundation, which received an anonymous donation of precisely $773,704.03 from an unnamed group with the address of "P.O. Box Bite Me," is giving $125,000 each to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts of charities DonorsChoose.org, Team Rubicon and Habitat for Humanity, plus another $125,000 to Yellow Ribbon Fund, which supports injured military members.

Colbert, who claimed he's a board member of the Ham Rove Memorial Fund, said he wanted to direct the money to UNICEF. But the rest of the board argued that UNICEF is the name of Colbert's yacht and denied the request, Colbert acknowledged.

Another $125,000 each would go to the Center for Responsive Politics and the Campaign Legal Center, the latter that's led by former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter, who served as legal counsel for Colbert's super PAC.

Colbert wondered aloud why the Ham Rove Memorial Fund would donate money to a pair of groups that respectively focus their efforts on campaign finance-related transparency and reform.

"There are some strings attached," Colbert noted.

With that, he explained that the Center for Responsive Politics would be renaming its conference room the "Colbert Super PAC Memorial Conference Room" while the Campaign Legal Center would rename its meeting space the "Ham Rove Memorial Conference Room."

Colbert turned to the camera.

"Just think," he said. "As the tidal wave of money continues to engulf politics, and these advocates for transparency are moaning about how powerless they are to stop it, little Ham here will be up on that wall watching the whole thing unfold with relish — and, maybe a little dijon."

During the 2012 campaign, Colbert's super PAC raised more than $1 million and inspired numerous college students to form their own super PACs.