When it comes to Trump-Russia collusion, Stephen Colbert tries to connect the dot

After right-wing Trump apologist stonewallers like Fox News conspiracy klaxon Sean Hannity and “Mr. Burns after botox” Louie Gohmert (R-TX) whipped out some convoluted charts even Charlie Kelly would find a bit iffy, Stephen Colbert started off Friday’s Late Show by offering his own. The flailing desperation of supporters of Donald Trump (living in fear of the oncoming footsteps of special counsel Robert Mueller) is in sweaty overdrive—largely in the direction of print shops, it seems—as they attempt to prove that that whole Russian collusion thing was actually the work of one Hillary Rodham Clinton. Their assertion is that the dreaded plot branded “Uranium One”—which has been thoroughly debunked as, well, bunk by rational people, including (to Fox News viewers’ frothing fury) Fox’s own Shepard Smith—is the final, tangled, fraying thread that somehow makes the case that… something. For Gohmert and Hannity, that means charts! Charts, charts, shiny charts! Charts jagged with labyrinthine, intersecting lines of connection, including, as Colbert showed on a blow-up of Gohmert’s actual presentation, two separate Barack Obamas! (“Is the second one eligible to run for president?,” Colbert asked, begging, “Please.”)

Well, Stephen Colbert is nothing but diligent in rebuttal, and fought the Trump types chart-for-chart. Unveiling his own, admittedly less cluttered visual aid, Colbert uncapped a magic marker, took a deep sniff for courage, and attempted to map out the alternate theory that the campaign whose figures are being indicted for colluding with Russia to undermine an American election was—strangely—the one that actually benefited from said collusion. Still, Colbert’s chart is worth a look. Just make sure you have time enough to really come to grips with it.