US Senator Elizabeth Warren renewed calls Wednesday, July 2, for a bribery investigation into Paramount following its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over a lawsuit the entertainment giant initially described as meritless.
The president had sued the CBS News parent company for $20 billion, claiming the "60 Minutes" program had deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 election rival Kamala Harris in her favor.
The suit is described by Trump's critics as part of a broader assault on press freedom that has seen him bar The Associated Press from the Oval Office and sue other media organizations over their coverage.
Paramount nevertheless entered into mediation in a bid to placate Trump, as it seeks to close its $8 billion merger with the entertainment company Skydance, which needs federal government approval.
"With Paramount folding to Donald Trump at the same time the company needs his administration's approval for its billion-dollar merger, this could be bribery in plain sight," said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat. "Paramount has refused to provide answers to a congressional inquiry, so I'm calling for a full investigation into whether or not any anti-bribery laws were broken."
Warren was among three senators who wrote to Paramount Global Chair Shari Redstone in May with bribery concerns over the company's efforts to settle the suit, calling for a congressional probe.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress, limiting the power of Democrats to investigate or compel answers from witnesses.
The senators' letter came after CBS News head Wendy McMahon and "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens quit over Paramount's handling of the showdown with Trump.
The company initially called the suit "completely without merit" and sought to have it dismissed. It said in a statement to AFP the $16 million would go toward Trump's future presidential library rather than to him personally, and added that the settlement did not include an apology.
In Wednesday's shareholders meeting, Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks said companies often settle litigation to avoid high legal costs and the unpredictability of a trial. Settlement allows a company to focus on its objectives "rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction," Cheeks said. But it was received by Trump's legal team with excitement. With the settlement, a spokesman said, Trump "delivers another win for the American people."
Warren said the company should be "ashamed of putting its profits over independent journalism" in the face of the Trump administration's "sheer corruption."
Trump accused CBS of airing two different snippets from the same answer that Harris, then vice president, gave about Israel, to help her in her election campaign.
Legal experts have argued that the lawsuit would have been an easy victory in court for CBS, which made public an unedited transcript of the Harris interview. And media watchers have pointed out that Trump routinely takes part in interviews that are edited for all manner of reasons, often in his favor.
"This settlement is a cowardly capitulation by the corporate leaders of Paramount, and a fundamental betrayal of ‘60 Minutes’ and CBS News," said Rome Hartman, who helped produce the Harris interview for the show. "The story that was the subject of this lawsuit was edited by the book and in accordance with CBS News standards."
CBS journalists stood united against the deal, seemingly in the works for months. In a letter to Paramount’s leadership in early May, the "60 Minutes" correspondents said they were troubled by reports that Paramount might settle the case "in a way that acknowledges some sort of wrongdoing on our part."
The correspondents, in the letter obtained by The Associated Press, said that "if our parent company caves in to his pressure and lies, it will leave a shameful stain and undermine the First Amendment." It was signed by Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Anderson Cooper, Sharyn Alfonsi, Jon Wertheim and Cecilia Vega.
"Paramount's decision to capitulate to Trump threatens journalists' ability to do their job reporting on powerful public figures," the Writers Guild of America East, which represents "60 Minutes" journalists, said in a statement.
ABC News, owned by Disney, agreed to donate a similar amount to the Trump presidential library in its own settlement with the president late last year. Trump had contended that star ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos had defamed him by asserting that Trump had been found liable for rape in a civil lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was found liable for sexual abuse.