Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort inadvertently revealed in a court filing unsealed Tuesday that in 2016, he'd sent internal polling data to a business associate tied to Russian intelligence, "providing the clearest evidence to date that the Trump campaign tried to coordinate with Russians," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Prior to this, the clearest evidence was ... everything else." Manafort's legal team revealed this by accident, he added. "His lawyers are terrible! How did Trump not hire them?"
Colbert took some liberties with how Manafort's team messed up redacting the PDF: "They thought they blacked out all the text — turns out they just did it directly onto the screen," with a Sharpie. And he was less-than-sympathetic to Manafort's excuse.
At The Daily Show, Trevor Noah was at least sympathetic to the technical difficulties that befell the Manafort legal team — up to a point. "Two things: In his defense, I don't know if you guys have ever tried to edit a PDF, that sh-t is hard," he said on Tuesday's show. "And then the other thing, I was like: But Paul Manafort, you should know how to edit or redact a PDF. Like, you were colluding with Russia, surely you could figure out how to collude with Kinkos." He went on to muse about how "the greatest criminals who pulled of the greatest 'crime,' in a way, are also the dumbest criminals of all time," and Donald Trump Jr. made a cameo. Watch below. Peter Weber
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