Sen. Warren calls for research into the Trump scheme of Paramount
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren castigated Paramount Global for her announced payment of $ 16 million to President Trump to arrange a “deserving” lawsuit – and said that CBS’s parent company “should be ashamed to make his profit above independent journalism.”
Warren, the Senior US Senator from Massachusetts, once again stated that the payment of Paramount to Trump is an illegal bribery. On Wednesday she called for an investigation into “whether or not anti-execution laws were violated.”
“With Paramount Folding to Donald Trump, at the same time, the company needs the approval of its administration for his merger of billion dollars, this bribery can be,” Warren said in a statement. “Paramount has refused to give answers to a conference examination, so I call for a full investigation into whether or not anti-reforming laws have been violated.”
Trump sued CBS and Paramount in October 2024, claiming that “60 minutes” worked an interview with Kamala Harris in a way that violated a Texas Consumer Protection Law by distorting the impressions of voters of her. Legal experts said that Trump’s suit was unfounded and that CBS was protected under the first amendment. Under the settlement, Paramount and CBS will not give ‘declaration of apologies or regret’, as Trump’s lawyers had insisted.
In May 2025, Warren, together with Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), wrote a letter to Shari Redstone, non-executive chairman of Paramount Global and the controlling shareholder and said that Paramount may deal with potential illegal behavior that the Trump administration “in the trump administration”
Wyden, in social media messages on Wednesday, repeated the feelings of Warren. “Paramount just paid Trump a bribe for approval of the merger,” he wrote. “When Democrats take back power, I will first stand in line to ask for federal charges. In the meantime, public prosecutors must make the business institutions that have sold our democracy answer today, today.”
Paramount Global has previously urged that Trump’s lawsuit is “completely separate from and is not related to the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process. We will adhere to the legal process to defend our case.” FCC chairman Brendan Carr also claimed that Trump’s lawsuit is not related to the deal-approval of the agency, although he said that the complaint from a conservative organization “news worship” about the “60 minutes” Harris segment would probably be part of the Skydance Paramount Review.
According to the Paramount Trump scheme, the $ 16 million are not “directly or indirectly paid to President Trump,” said Paramount. Instead, that money will go to his presidential library, the company said.
On Wednesday, Warren said that she is planning to introduce new legislation to “collapse corruption through donations from the presidential library.”
“This scheme reveals a striking need for rules to limit donations to the libraries of sitting presidents,” she said. “I will soon introduce new legislation to start corruption in check through donations from the presidential library. The level of pure corruption of the Trump administration is terrible and that Paramount should be ashamed to make his profit about independent journalism.”
In a statement in May who responded to the letter from the senators, a spokesperson for the White House said: “Democrats on Capitol Hill are becoming more and more desperate and loosened by the day, and this last act of Faux indignation reveals the depth of their despair.
