Colbert's "Ham Rove" conference room in D.C. is now official

A campaign finance group in D.C. dedicated the room, complete with a giant portrait of Stephen Colbert

Published March 22, 2013 4:26PM (EDT)

      (The Colbert Report)
(The Colbert Report)

The Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., has officially dedicated a conference room to "Ham Rove," Stephen Colbert's brutally murdered, meat-based political strategist.

Dave Weigel reports:

In his long, fruitless, strangely not-Emmy-winning battle for campaign finance transparency, Stephen Colbert has relied on the work of former FEC commissioner Trevor Potter and his Campaign Legal Center. In December, Cobert bestowed the CLC with a portrait of himself holding the FEC ruling that their work had earned him. Last night, the CLC held a small reception to show off the rest of the TV host's gift: A donation and a plaque, renaming the organization's conference room after Colbert's faux, murdered adviser Ham Rove.

In December, Colbert announced that the money he raised with his super PAC would be donated to the "Ham Rove Memorial Fund," which in turn distributed the funds to charities, as well as the campaign finance reform group. A condition of the donation was renaming the conference room.

"I just want to say that all of you at the CLC have dedicated your time and talent to ensure that our nation's campaign finance laws are followed to the letter," Colbert said in a taped message played at the reception. "So I could not be more proud to learn that you have named this conference room in exchange for a sizable donation of untraceable cash."

As Colbert put it back in the segment announcing the donation, as the CLC fights for campaign finance reform, "little Ham here will be up on that wall watching the whole thing unfold with relish, and maybe a little Dijon."

Watch the Colbert segment:


By Jillian Rayfield

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com.

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Campaign Finance Fec Stephen Colbert The Colbert Report Trevor Potter Video