Shari Redstone better change her tune, or she, her board, and her corporate officers may go to prison on bribery charges in 2029.
If you think that’s far-fetched, consider the seamy details of the fracas involving Redstone, Donald Trump, and the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to settle his ridiculous $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News over the editing of a pre-election 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, and that Trump wants $25 million and an apology.
Even as Redstone takes the transparently phony step of recusing herself from settlement talks, this would be a big fat bribe, the kind of illegally extorted payment that has routinely sent crooked politicians and ordinary miscreants to the slammer for years. The only thing that ironically obscures the crime is that, as with so much of Trump’s perfidy, it is happening in public view.
Why would Redstone, the heiress chair of Paramount (which owns CBS), settle with Trump when CBS News did nothing even the slightest bit wrong? Because if she doesn’t, the chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, who literally wears a gold Trump-head pin on his suit jacket, will block Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
Redstone wants her billions, “and she has told people it is her preference to settle the matter and move on with her life,” Charles Gasparino, a well-connected business reporter, wrote Thursday in The New York Post.
Dream on, Shari. The chances of you “moving on with your life” after paying off Trump are between zero and none. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden have already written to you, stating that they plan to investigate whether the deal involved bribery. They will soon have plenty of company in Congress in making your life miserable. That’s just a taste of what lies ahead should you choose to bend the knee. Here’s what will happen as soon as the settlement is completed:
Redstone, Paramount corporate officers and the board (with three or four more directors about to be named) will be buried up to their necks in expensive and time-consuming shareholder lawsuits, with depositions out the wazoo. While “D&O” (Directors and Officers liability insurance) will cover many of the legal expenses of those suits, it apparently won’t cover the defense of Redstone et al from bribery charges, which would send legal bills into the millions.
Redstone’s alleged bribery will be the subject of hearings in the House Judiciary Committee as early as January of 2027. That’s when, if voters fulfill the expectations of most pundits, Democrats re-take the House. Witnesses who incoming chair Rep. Jamie Raskin might be expected to call include Redstone; her inexperienced and (if she advises settlement) incompetent acting general counsel, Caryn Groce; George Cheeks, the CEO of CBS; board members Barbara Byrne, Linda Griego, Susan Schuman and Judith McHale; Skydance chief David Ellison; and his father, billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a prominent Trump supporter, who would likely plead the Fifth about at least one conversation in which he reportedly urged Trump to call off the dogs and let the deal go through.
Oh, and when 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, a man of integrity, is asked under oath if the settlement seems to him like a bribe, we can expect that he will answer with a devastating, “Yes.”
And after that? If a Democrat is elected president in 2028, you can be sure that federal prosecutors would love to bring this case in front of a jury. The five-year statute of limitations on bribery would give them (just enough) time, and the quid pro quo they would have to prove is less complicated than in many bribery cases. While it’s true that the law gives the settlement of claims in civil cases wide latitude, it does not countenance bribery and extortion.
To help clarify why this walks, talks, and quacks like extortion and bribery, let’s go back to last December. That’s when Carr gave an interview to the New York Post where he said: “I’m pretty confident that that news distortion complaint over the 60 Minutes transcript is something that is likely to arise in the context of the FCC review of that transaction.”
Translation: “Nice merger you have there. Pity if something should happen to it.”
It helps to see exactly what is at issue here. In February, CBS News released the full transcript of the Harris interview. Here’s her 140-word answer from the promo for the interview that ran on Face the Nation:
Well, let’s start with October 7th. Because obviously, what we do now must be in the context of what has happened. And as I reflect on a year ago, and that 1,200 people were massacred, young people at a festival, at a music festival, 250 hostages were taken, including Americans, women were brutally raped.
And as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. And as we fast forward into what we have seen in the ensuing weeks and months, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we know that, and I think most agree, this war has to end. And that has to be our number one imperative, and that has been our number one imperative. How can we get this war to end?
And here is the 56-word edited soundbite that ran on 60 Minutes:
Well, let’s start with October 7th. Twelve hundred people were massacred, 250 hostages were taken, including Americans. Women were brutally raped. And as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end.
Trump’s lawyers don’t argue that the editing changed the meaning of Harris’s words, only that she looked better in the shorter soundbite. Imagine forking over tens of millions of dollars and possibly apologizing for a low-level weekend editor’s alleged motivation in choosing a newsy soundbite and fitting it to the time allotted for the promo. This is preposterous and would come across as such in court.
The bribery trial would also illuminate some basic, unarguable truths about TV news. Anyone who has ever worked in television or has any familiarity with journalism knows that time constraints routinely require quotes and soundbites to be edited. More important, under the First Amendment, news organizations have an absolute, unfettered right to do so. The only way a plaintiff could get to first base under normal circumstances would be if the editing distorted the meaning of the soundbite, which in this case it was not. Trump just thought that Harris was dumb (even though she had just kicked his ass in their only debate) and CBS was making her look smarter and crisper. Hardly the grounds for a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit.
There are also big First Amendment issues here, of course. If CBS settles it will set a devastating precedent—far worse than the ABC News case, where George Stephanopoulos may have erred in calling what Trump did to E. Jean Carroll “rape” instead of “sexual abuse,” the term employed by the jury.
There’s no conceivable error here. Redstone settling with Trump would send a message to powerful people that they can extort money out of news organizations over accurate and non-defamatory stories that merely displease them. Even if they lack the immense leverage that Trump has, these would-be litigants will feel entitled to intimidate journalists who have done nothing wrong. That would constitute a serious blow to free expression.
A bribery probe and splashy trial would send a different message: Bowing to the White House might send you to the Big House.
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