Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC Hauls in More Than $1 Million
Published at
Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The Stephen Colbert super PAC is run by a comedian, but the political action committee’s bank account is no joke, based on federal reports filed Tuesday.
The super PAC is “rolling seven digits deep,” as Stephen Colbert said in a statement to the Federal Election Commission Tuesday, having hauled in more than $1.02 million as of Jan. 30.
“We raised it on my show and used it to materially influence the elections — in full accordance with the law,” Comedy Central comedian Colbert said Tuesday in a statement. “It’s the way our Founding Fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”
Colbert, 47, created the super PAC, officially called Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, in June and has used it to accentuate new campaign finance laws that allow people and corporations to donate unlimitedly to such groups, which can then spend that money to support or oppose political candidates.
In the weeks leading up to the South Carolina primary, Colbert transferred power of his super PAC to fellow comedian Jon Stewart in an on-air ceremony on The Colbert Report complete with a sci-fi-style money-power transfer and celebratory balloon drop.
During Colbert’s two-week flirtation with a presidential run, the super PAC, under Stewart’s direction, spent at least $71,000 to create and air four ads in South Carolina.
Colbert snatched back the super PAC reins Monday night in an epic battle that spanned Stewart’s The Daily Show and Colbert’s show.
“The way I see it, the Supreme Court said that money is speech, and Jon Stewart was hogging all my speech,” Colbert said in Tuesday’s statement. “Now I’ve taken that speech from Jon, making him like that movie The Artist: French.”
Colbert has not said what he plans to spend his remaining money on.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio