It Looks Like CBS and Donald Trump Are Negotiating a Bribe
Newsweek
It Looks Like CBS and Donald Trump Are Negotiating a Bribe | Opinion
Published Apr 29, 2025 at 3:38 PM EDTUpdated Apr 29, 2025 at 3:39 PM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/cbs-donald-trump-are-negotiating-bribe-opinion-2065826
Thomas Moukawsher
As you read this, in some crowded conference room, a mediator is negotiating a bribe to be paid by CBS to Donald Trump, president of the United States.
To be sure, a pantomime is being played out. The parties are pretending to be earnestly negotiating the settlement of a federal lawsuit. But they should not delude themselves. They are negotiating a bribe. And this should worry them.
The bribe stems from one of Donald Trump’s new favorite grifts—filing bogus personal lawsuits against people he could hurt with presidential power and then demanding a payoff. He has already collected $15 million from ABC News and $25 million from Meta for some seriously silly suits.
But this one’s the worst. Trump alleges that “60 Minutes” used an excerpt from a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris that made her look more coherent than if it had used a longer version. That’s it. That’s all. From this Trump has demanded $20 billion, payable to him personally. He says, but has offered no proof, that this bit of snipping set off a tsunami. Trump claims it perpetrated a gigantic fraud on the public and this tiny moment —by itself—devasted his revenues from what he labels a competing business—his Truth Social platform.
The claims are preposterous and everyone involved knows it. There was nothing wrong with what was done, and Trump suffered none of the harms he claims. The claims are too stupid for any adult to accept, not to mention any of the players involved who attended law school.
So why is CBS parleying for a payoff? That’s no secret either. CBS is owned by Paramount Global. Paramount wants to be bought by Skydance Media. The Federal Communications Commission must approve the transfer of the CBSbroadcast license from Paramount to Skydance. Trump’s appointed chairman of the FCC, Brenden Carr, has made it clear that Trump’s complaint about CBS will come up in the discussions about whether to approve the transfer.
Hard to figure out what’s going on? Murky? Nope. It’s like a baseball hurtling at 120 miles an hour at the bridge of your nose. And if the need for the payoff weren’t already obvious enough, insiders have made clear that Shari Redstone, owner of a controlling interest in Paramount, wants the settlement to happen so the sale will be approved by the FCC, so she will clear billions of dollars for herself. If participants in the negotiations go home at night wondering whether it’s fair to call this a discussion of bribery, they had better look in the mirror. It’s happening in plain sight and they are part of the conspiracy.
And this is where things get interesting. It may seem quaint these days to point out that bribing the president of the United States is a crime. After all, Trump has engaged in such an orgy of shakedowns and pocket linings since the 2024 election that maybe some are starting to see this as normal.
But it isn’t and mustn’t become so. Absent a violent takeover of the government—don’t bet against an attempt—Trump will be gone in less than four years. The statute of limitations for prosecuting people who bribe the president is five years. Bribery includes “directly or indirectly” giving “anything of value to any public official… with intent to influence an official act.” Bribery also includes when an official “demands” or “seeks” “anything of value personally or for any other person or entity,” in return for “for being influenced in the performance of any official act.”
Conspirators who aid in the planning and execution of the crime don’t escape either. Conspiracy to commit bribery of the president happens when, “[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.” A lawyer, a party to the lawsuit, and even a mediator who tries to facilitate such an unseemly scheme could someday find themselves as criminal defendants. Remember, the FBI and the Justice Department are only corrupt for now.
CBS, Trump, their lawyers, the mediator, and Redstone should run from this farce before the final piece of evidence arrives. Watch for it. The lawsuit settlement will come first. The FCC approval second. That’s all that remains to be seen.
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 new book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It