Newsweek: Here Comes the Bribe. What To Do About the $16M CBS Is Paying Donald Trump |
Newsweek
Here Comes the Bribe. What To Do About the $16M CBS Is Paying Donald Trump | Opinion
Thomas Moukawsher
Published
Jul 08, 2025 at 07:00 AM EDT
Incredibly, it’s happened. In broad daylight, amid credible claims of corruption, CBS has agreed to pay President Donald Trump‘s library $16 million for Federal Communication Commission (FCC) approval of a broadcast license transfer. The courts should do something about it.
Don’t listen to those saying it isn’t so. It’s true that Trump’s lawsuit doesn’t say, “please pay me a bribe.” But it may as well have. It accuses CBS of unfair trade practices for a small edit Trump said made Kamala Harris look good. It’s also true that CBS doesn’t admit to paying a bribe. CBS said it was settling to protect its reputation and save legal costs. But it also said the settlement will allow CBS parent Paramount to “focus on their core objectives.”
That objective, as anyone who can count to 16 should know, is to secure FCC approval to transfer the CBS news license from Paramount to its would-be purchaser, Skydance. Right now, its idling at the FCC under the control of its chairman, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, who was also presides over an FCC complaint identical to the Trump court claim.
Watch. Now the complaint will go away, and the license will be granted. Carr will probably say he and Donald Trump never spoke about it. Maybe that’s true, maybe not. But of course, they didn’t have to. Carr has heard all he needs through the media. CBS wants approval. Trump wants cash.
The lawyers may also say they didn’t discuss the license during settlement negotiations. Maybe they just talked about the need to “restore good will” between CBS and Trump and other coded things like that. Who knows? But we know what they were after, and so did they.
How can we be so sure? It’s because, as lawyers, they had to know that in the history of American courts there have been few cases that have been bigger stinkers than this one. If a politician in a country guaranteeing free speech can successfully sue the media for making his opponent look too good then we should be suing our neighbors for favoring other neighbors over ourselves and suing politicians for making an utter mess of the country. Nothing’s too far out.
Ask yourself: Would CBS have paid this money if Trump had lost the election? Of course not, and that and the lawsuit’s absurdity tell us the money can only be a bribe. As Sherlock Holmes might have put it, with the other reasons for the settlement being impossible, the remaining possibility is the real reason. CBS and Trump know this is so, no matter how slippery and mob-like they have been in avoiding the “B” word.
So, it’s corruption. But, “c’mon” you might say, hasn’t Washington always been corrupt? Well, “c’mon,” right back at you. Everything is—a little. Corruption in government is like water—or sewage—filling a glass. A member of Congress calls a federal agency to help a friend—or a donor. Pour a little in. A senator’s son gets a good paying job working for a defense contractor. Pour in a little more. A senator takes expensive gifts from people doing business with the government. The glass overflows. Former Senator Robert Menendez goes to jail.
Now aim a firehose at the glass and let it rip. That’s the Trump level of corruption.
When Trump cut Vietnam’s tariffs by more than half last week Vietnam had just approved $1.5 billion of projects for the Trump Organization. Have you forgotten the $400 million plane? The meme coins? The White House crypto coin auction? Millions from Meta to settle a bogus lawsuit? Millions from ABC to settle a bogus lawsuit? Millions to Melania from Jeff Bezos? Watches? Guitars? Bibles? All of it to benefit Trump personally.
Let it stop with CBS. The judge should delay action on any motion to dismiss the case until the FCC decision. If it’s favorable to CBS, the judge should hear testimony under oath about the negotiations for purposes of policing the ethics of the lawyers involved with the case. If the court won’t do it, legal ethics boards should. If they don’t, Congress should. The truth about these shabby dealings should have consequences.
Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It.