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Constitutional Lawyers Urge AGs to Probe Paramount-Skydance's Millions to Trump
"While these schemes may also violate federal criminal statutes, the DOJ has been co-opted by Trump and cannot be depended upon to fulfill its obligation to impartially investigate," said a Free Speech for People counsel.
Jul 31, 2025
Constitutional lawyers on Thursday wrote to leading prosecutors in California and New York, urging them to open criminal investigations into the recent payments made or promised to U.S. President Donald Trump, his personal associates, or his special interests by Paramount Global and Skydance Media, whose $8 billion merger was approved by federal regulators last week.
"Relevant state and local officials of New York and California must fulfill their investigatory obligations to protect their residents, and to launch criminal investigations into those responsible for the extortion of Paramount and Skydance," said Courtney Hostetler, legal director at the nonprofit Free Speech for People (FSFP).
Hostetler and three of her FSFP colleagues—president John Bonifaz, chairman and senior legal adviser Ben Clements, and senior counsel Suparna Reddy—sent letters to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, New York state Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
They pointed to the Republican president's "baseless" $20 billion lawsuit against Paramount—whose subsidiaries include CBS—over a "60 Minutes" interview with former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who faced Trump in last year's election.
"While some of these payments ostensibly were made to settle a frivolous lawsuit brought by Trump against Paramount subsidiary CBS Broadcasting Inc., the evidence strongly suggests that the lawsuit and its settlement merely veiled Trump's true purposes—namely, to chill the freedom of the press and unlawfully extort payments and other things of value," the letters state.
Paramount settled at the beginning of the month, agreeing to pay "$16 million toward Trump's attorney fees and to fund his presidential library or purported charitable causes chosen by Trump," the letters detail. Then, Skydance met with the Federal Communications Commission about its acquisition of Paramount, and the FCC swiftly approved the megamerger.
According to the FSFP lawyers:
Now it appears that Paramount and Skydance may have taken other, unreported-to-the-court actions in order to secure FCC approval of the merger. Trump claimed that once the merger is approved, Skydance would contribute $20 million in advertising, public service announcements, or similar programming to Trump as part of a side deal to the $16 million settlement. And CBS canceled the popular program "The Late Show" after its host Stephen Colbert, a longtime critic of Trump (and indeed of many politicians), derided the settlement on air as "a big fat bribe." Trump posted on Truth Social that he "absolutely loves" "The Late Show's" cancellation. Paramount also agreed to hire an ombudsman at CBS News to investigate complaints of "political bias," which has the potential to limit journalistic freedom at CBS.
In addition to providing this background, the letters lay out the basis for "an immediate and thorough" probe, citing various laws in each state, and stress that "the immunity available to federal officials under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution is not available in all circumstances and does not preclude criminal investigation and prosecution here."
Although the letters do not name U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Trump loyalist has faced mounting allegations of "serious professional misconduct." Reddy suggested that she likely will not investigate the merger and related payments.
"States should not wait for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to act first," said Reddy. "While these schemes may also violate federal criminal statutes, the DOJ has been co-opted by Trump and cannot be depended upon to fulfill its obligation to impartially investigate."
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Media and University Bosses Are Silencing Their Employees for Fear of Trump’s Wrath
The silencing is happening across American media because Trump cannot stand criticism, because he’s vindictive as hell, and because he’s willing and able to use the federal government to punish media corporations.
Jul 26, 2025
The latest casualty of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to silence media criticism is Eduardo Porter, one of the most thoughtful and intelligent critics of this heinous regime.
On Tuesday, Porter wrote his last column for The Washington Post. In it, he criticized Trump’s attempt to dismantle the global trading system.
Porter didn’t stop there. He also explained why he was leaving the Post:
Jeff Bezos and his new head of Opinion are taking the paper down a path I cannot follow, directed toward the relentless promotion of free markets and personal liberties… I have no idea to what extent this is driven by Mr. Bezos’ fear of what Donald Trump could do to his various business interests, most of which are more valuable to him than the Post.
Well, I do have an idea. Bezos stopped the Post from endorsing former Vice President Kamala Harris. He made a huge contribution to Trump’s inauguration. And he stood directly in front of Trump at Trump’s swearing in.
Why? Because Bezos owns a bunch of mega-corporations, including Amazon, that depend on Trump’s goodwill and could be in deep trouble if Trump decided to retaliate against Bezos.
It’s much the same story with Stephen Colbert, longtime host of CBS’ “The Late Show” and the top-rated late-night talk show host in the United States.
On July 14, Colbert openly criticized CBS’ parent company, Paramount, for its $16 million settlement with Trump of his frivolous lawsuit over the routine editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that Trump claimed gave her an unfair advantage in the 2024 election.
Said Colbert in his opening monologue:
As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company… I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s big fat bribe. Because this all comes as Paramount's owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.
Three days later, on July 17, Paramount pulled the plug on Colbert’s show, eliciting from Trump a celebratory, “I absolutely love that Colbert was fired.”
(A few days later, Colbert came out swinging, telling Trump to “go fuck yourself,” and joking that it had always been his dream to have a sitting president celebrate the end of his career.)
Yesterday, one week after Colbert’s show was cancelled, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount’s sale to Skydance.
To cinch the deal, Skydance CEO David Ellison promised that he’d eliminate all U.S.-based Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at Paramount and CBS and create a new ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias in news coverage.
Trump says CBS also agreed to run $20 million worth of public service announcements consistent with his ideological beliefs.
Let’s be clear. Jeff Bezos has silenced any criticism of Trump on the editorial pages of The Washington Post because Bezos fears Trump’s wrath.
CBS and its parent corporation, Paramount, has silenced criticism of Trump on Colbert’s hugely popular “Late Show” because its top corporate brass fears Trump’s wrath.
The new owner of CBS has agreed to some federal interference in the content of what it produces because he fears Trump’s wrath.
The silencing is happening across American media because Trump cannot stand criticism, because he’s vindictive as hell, and because he’s willing and able to use every department and agency of the federal government to punish any media corporations that allow its writers or hosts to criticize him.
It’s the same with American universities, whose professors have often criticized Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions and whose research has often yielded conclusions that contradict Trump’s lies (such as that climate change is a “hoax”).
Columbia University, Dartmouth College, and a handful of others have gone out of their way to “cooperate” with the Trump regime in order to avoid Trump’s wrath.
What does “cooperation” entail? Silencing Trump’s potential critics.
Columbia has just agreed to allow the regime to review its admissions and hiring practices in order to receive the federal research grants that the regime had held back.
Friends, this is how democracy dies.
Shame on any media outlet or university that allows Trump to silence it.
Trump is a dangerous despot. America needs its Eduardo Porters, Stephen Colberts, and all others in the media and in academia who have helped the nation understand just how truly dangerous Trump is.
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Paramount Chose Trump’s Favor Over Press Freedom
The latest moves from CBS’ owners mark the latest seismic shift to the right in the U.S. media landscape.
Jul 25, 2025
The media production company Skydance is acquiring Paramount Global. The deal may be thought largely to be an entertainment merger, as Paramount owns Comedy Central, MTV, BET, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and the Paramount film studio. But Paramount owns broadcast network CBS and its news programming, which means that the deal has enormous implications for journalism—particularly given that it requires federal approval.
The coast certainly seems clear for the merger at this point [Editor’s Note: It was approved on Thursday]: Paramount has settled what is widely regarded as a frivolous lawsuit from U.S. President Donald Trump for $16 million over a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris; it has also canceled its highly successful and long-running “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” whose host was critical of the settlement. Meanwhile, Paramount‘s soon-to-be-owner has met with “anti-woke” crusader Bari Weiss about a potential partnership with CBS.
U.S. President Donald Trump has used his institutional power to attack media he dislikes such as ABC and CBS, as well as to defund liberal-leaning public broadcasters NPR and PBS (FAIR.org, 4/25/25; Variety, 7/18/25; USA Today, 7/18/25). Late last year, Disney settled a similarly ludicrous Trump lawsuit over ABC‘s election coverage (FAIR.org, 12/16/24).
Trump has also used his power to take control of government broadcaster Voice of America, once a Cold War propaganda tool for U.S. power projection abroad, and fill it with content from One America News Network (AP, 5/7/25), a pro-Trump outlet FAIR founder Jeff Cohen once said “makes Fox News sound like Democracy Now!” (FAIR.org, 10/15/21).
The latest moves from CBS‘ owners mark the latest seismic shift to the right in the U.S. media landscape.
Paramount Kisses the Ring
The lawsuit that Paramount settled to pave the way for the deal preposterously claimed that an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the CBS show “60 Minutes” was deceptively edited to favor her over Trump (BBC, 7/2/25). Anyone who cares about journalism or media freedom would have rooted for Paramount and CBS to fight the lawsuit, but Paramount‘s leading stockholder, Shari Redstone, apparently saw the settlement as a small price to keep Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from standing in the way of the lucrative sale. (Trump claims that the combined company has also agreed to air $16 million more in PSAs, described as messages that will “support conservative causes supported by President Trump,” as part of the settlement, though Paramount denies such a side agreement exists—Variety, 7/4/25).
The settlement has been “broadly criticized as capitulation” by CBS staffers (Vanity Fair, 7/2/25). Reuters (7/2/25) reported that one “60 Minutes” source said:
Newsroom staff expressed “widespread distress” about the settlement and concerns about the future of the CBS News prime time news magazine and its hard-hitting brand of journalism.
A filing with the FCC (Deadline, 7/18/25) suggested that an upcoming shift in CBS’ news coverage was part of the deal to get the acquisition approved. It said that Skydance and FCC officials had “discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’ editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”
Presumably those “varied ideological perspectives” will not include those offensive to Trump, since airing those resulted in Paramount paying a multi-million-dollar settlement. As I previously wrote (FAIR.org, 2/26/25), FCC chair Brendan Carr is a lieutenant in the MAGA movement, and wrote the FCC section for Project 2025, the right-wing policy roadmap for the second Trump administration. While vowing to reduce regulation, he has shown no qualms about using state power to impose ideological limits on broadcast news.
Paramount also promised to install an ombud who would investigate “any complaints of bias or other concerns” at CBS News, and to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (Wrap, 7/23/25).
‘Sacrificing Free Speech to Curry Favor’
As the deal approached, it became clear that CBS’ ability to operate as a fair news provider was slipping, as Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” “announced his resignation, saying he can no longer make independent journalism decisions for the program” (NPR, 4/23/25). With Colbert’s termination, it’s unclear whether any part of the new Skydance empire will escape ideological purification.
CBS‘ announcement that it would cancel the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” has been read as a muzzling of a prominent critic, not just of Trump, but of the Paramount settlement. The Writers Guild of America East (7/18/25) spelled out the authoritarian moment plainly:
On July 15, during a regular show of the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Colbert went on-air and called the settlement a “big fat bribe” in exchange for a favorable decision on the proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance, a charge currently under investigation in California.
Less than 48 hours later, on July 17, Paramount canceled the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” a show currently performing first in its timeslot, giving vague references to the program’s “financial performance” as the only explanation. For 10 years, the show has been one of the most successful, beloved, and profitable programs on CBS, entertaining an audience of millions on late night television, on streaming services, and across social media.
Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that the “Late Show’s” cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.
In its first new episode in over a year, the Comedy Central flagship animated comedy “South Park” (7/23/25), often embraced by conservatives for its eagerness to offend liberals, attacked both Trump and the channel’s owner Paramount. In its raunchy style, USA Today (7/24/25) reported, it “referenced everything from the company’s controversial settlement with the president to its shock decision to cancel the ‘Late Show With Stephen Colbert.’” Show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone had previously commented on X (7/2/25), “This merger is a shitshow, and it’s fucking up ‘South Park.’” It remains to be seen whether the thin-skinned Trump White House will hold up the acquisition in retaliation for the satire. [Editor’s Note: It did not.]
Trump’s ‘Favorite Tech Company’
There are indications that more ideological restructuring at the network is on its way. CNN (7/11/25) reported that “Paramount’s owner-in-waiting, David Ellison, met with journalist entrepreneur Bari Weiss… about a possible tie-up between CBS News and her startup The Free Press.” The report added that “Ellison is said to be interested in infusing Weiss’ editorial perspective into CBS News.”
For those who are unfamiliar with Weiss, she is a former New York Times editor and writer who gained fame for attacking “wokeness” (Commentary, 11/21)—which for the right is any politics that seeks to address racial and gender inequalities—and her advocacy for Israel and against critics of its government (Intercept, 3/8/18).
While David Ellison donated to former President Joe Biden’s reelection efforts (CNBC, 4/16/24) and other Democratic campaigns, the political commitments of his father Larry Ellison may be more relevant. Larry is the cofounder of the software giant Oracle and, according to the Forbes 400 list, the fourth-richest person in the United States, behind Meta‘s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos, and X‘s Elon Musk. As The New York Times (4/2/25) noted, Larry “is putting up most of the $8 billion bid by his son, David, to buy Paramount.”
The elder Ellison is well-known for his contributions to conservative causes (Vox, 2/12/20; Washington Post, 5/20/22). He gave $4 million to a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio’s presidential bid (Politico, 2/20/16), and $15 million to one backing Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.) (Politico, 2/19/22).
Slate (9/14/20) called Oracle the “Trump Administration’s Favorite Tech Company,” as evidenced by the fact that Trump picked Oracle to potentially “partner” with TikTok, giving the Chinese-owned social media company a reliable ideological watchdog in order to avoid a congressionally mandated ban (FAIR.org, 12/6/24).
Shared ‘Zionist Values’
One thing the Ellisons agree on is wholehearted support for Zionism. In 2017, Larry Ellison gave $16.6 million to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/17). Two years ago, the Hollywood Reporter (10/13/23) reported that “Skydance Media, led by David Ellison, has committed $1 million to humanitarian relief efforts in Israel” in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. It quoted the company:
Skydance stands with Israel, strongly condemns the attacks against its citizens, is donating support to the victims of this tragic act of terrorism, and prays for the safe release of innocents hostages.
Last year, The Jerusalem Post (7/31/24) ran a story “written in cooperation with SkyDance” that highlighted support for Israel by David Ellison and Redstone’s son, “Brandon Korff, heir to the Paramount empire.” The article quoted a “source familiar with the details” who described Ellison and Korff sharing “Zionist values” and noted that “both quietly donate quite a bit to the state of Israel and the [Israel Defense Forces.]”
Redstone herself has been an outspoken Zionist during her time at the head of Paramount; when CBS admonished host Tony Dokoupil for his hostile interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which Dokoupil suggested that Coates was an “extremist” on Palestine, Redstone publicly criticized network management (LA Times, 10/9/24).
Given the talks with Weiss and The Free Press, one might expect CBS coverage to skew even further to the right on the Middle East, as well as on the Trump’s administration effort to clamp down on critical speech against Israel’s genocide and its support from the U.S. While Weiss’s brand is all about free speech, she got her start in politics agitating for the censorship of professors with pro-Palestinian views (Jewish Currents, 7/23/20).
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