Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over an interview that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes. This settlement includes money for Trump’s legal fees and costs, with the rest going toward his future presidential library. While this seems like a black-and-white decision, it could be a possible exchange of favors.
As found by MSNBC, Senator Ron Wyden accused CBS of paying “Trump a bribe for merger approval.” and promised, “When Democrats retake power, I’ll be first in line calling for federal charges. In the meantime, state prosecutors should make the corporate execs who sold out our democracy answer in court, today.”
The legal case started because of an interview 60 Minutes did last year with Kamala Harris, who was then running for president as a Democrat. Trump claimed the segment was edited in a misleading way. It is common for major party candidates to do 60 Minutes interviews before a presidential election. Harris went ahead with her interview, which later got an Emmy nomination, but Trump, who had initially agreed to do one, later backed out.
Trump got money from his lawsuit, but it may be for a bribe
Even though he didn’t do the interview, Trump kept complaining about Harris’s segment, saying the show had edited it deceptively. These claims had already been proven false before the settlement was reached. Trump’s criticism grew stronger, and he accused 60 Minutes of “unlawful and illegal behavior.” He also publicly demanded that CBS lose its broadcast license, pay the highest possible fines, and face serious punishment from the Federal Communications Commission.
Trump has sued news stations before, but Trump’s lawsuit against CBS was unusual because he asked for $20 billion in damages, a number based on his conspiracy theories about the show’s election coverage. Given how unlikely his claims were and the fact that there were no real problems with the broadcast, many people wondered why a settlement was necessary at all. Paramount Global, in its statement about the agreement, did not apologize or admit any wrongdoing.
Still, a spokesperson for Trump’s team quickly said the settlement, “holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit.” Some worry that Paramount might have agreed to pay such a large amount not because 60 Minutes did anything wrong, but to get the Trump administration to approve a separate merger deal, which makes a lot of sense.
Paramount Global has tried to ease these concerns, saying the lawsuit has nothing to do with the Skydance deal or the FCC approval process. But these statements haven’t stopped suspicions that the $16 million payment to Trump’s future presidential library is meant to influence the administration’s decisions.
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden expressed their concerns in a letter, pointing to the federal bribery law, which makes it illegal to give anything of value to public officials to sway their decisions. They suggested that if Paramount made concessions in a trade for favors to influence President Trump or other officials, it could be breaking the law.
