NEW YORK CITY (CBS) – House Democrats debating how and whether to commence impeachment proceedings against President Trump laid aside their disappointment at the Mueller report’s effective exoneration, after the recent discovery by former CBS News anchor Dan Rather of a memo which offers indisputable proof that President Trump colluded with Russians to win the 2016 presidential election.

“In the past,” said Rather, “I’ve had… challenges… when it comes to taking down sitting Presidents using thinly-sourced documents of questionable origin, but this is nothing like that. This one is solid. And although this one is also written in the Microsoft Word default Times New Roman font, that’s OK, because this time it’s actually been invented.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greeted news of the document’s existence with cautious optimism.

“Well,” said Pelosi, “I’ve been burned by a lot of fake news over the last couple years, but when I heard the source was Dan Rather, I was convinced. That man is a journalistic giant. Like a combination of Walter Cronkite and Tokyo Rose. Of course, I don’t mean that Dan was a propagandist traitor who undermined America’s war effort, I just mean he had a big audience.”

Independent Senator from Vermont and current Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was also optimistic, but didn’t see as much need for caution.

“Obviously, any document that claims President Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors must be taken very seriously, based on the grave nature of the charges,” Sanders said. “The fact that it’s written as though the author only seemed to be familiar with Russia through bad pop-culture stereotypes, using terms like ‘Trumpski’, ‘moose and squirrel’, and ‘I must break you’ – well, every Russian I’ve ever seen on TV talks that way, so that’s pretty convincing. Also, I went to a Yakov Smirnoff show once, so I think I know what I’m talking about.”

Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff said that, although he “hadn’t actually read the memo,” he was willing to stake his reputation on it, based on its source.

“Dan Rather is a good man,” said Schiff. “A trustworthy man. A funny man. He used to crack me up when he & Dick Martin hosted ‘Laugh-In‘ What a team!”

At press time, President Trump was unavailable for comment, as he was in his money vault doing the backstroke in a swimming pool filled with gold coins, as billionaires are wont to do.

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