Media advocacy group Freedom of the Press Foundation has sent a warning letter to Paramount mogul Shari Redstone, outlining plans to file a lawsuit if the media company settles a suit brought by President Donald Trump against its subsidiary, CBS.
“Corporations that own news outlets should not be in the business of settling baseless lawsuits that clearly violate the First Amendment,” Freedom of the Press Foundation director of advocacy Seth Stern said in a statement.
Stern issued the warning by asking for a litigation hold on Friday afternoon, demanding that Paramount preserve any documents relating to a potential Trump deal and urging the company not to settle. The nonprofit is able to seek damages because it owns shares of Paramount. It plans to act on behalf of itself and other shareholders, alleging that the settlement would amount to the company’s executives “breaching their fiduciary duties and wasting corporate assets by engaging in conduct that US senators and others believe could amount to unlawful bribery that falls outside the scope of the business judgment rule.” The White House and Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last October, President Trump sued Paramount subsidiaries CBS Broadcasting and CBS Interactive, alleging that an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on longstanding CBS News program 60 Minutes was deceptively edited, in a manner that constituted election interference. Initially seeking $10 billion in damages, Trump amended the lawsuit in February to ask for $20 billion. Paramount Global has a market cap of roughly $8.5 billion.
Although Paramount previously called the lawsuit “an affront to the First Amendment” in legal filings to dismiss this March, it has reportedly sought to settle; the company has a potentially lucrative merger pending with Hollywood studio Skydance that would require the Trump administration’s signoff.
Last week, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden sent a letter to Redstone seeking information about any potential settlement, raising concerns that it would amount to bribery. “If Paramount officials make these concessions in a quid pro quo arrangement to influence President Trump or other Administration officials,” they wrote, “they may be breaking the law.”
Talks of a potential settlement had roiled CBS for months. Longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens abruptly resigned in April, and CBS News president and CEO Wendy McMahon resigned earlier this month. “It’s become clear the company and I do not agree on a path forward,” she wrote in a memo to staff at the time.
Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount isn’t an isolated attack on the media. He sued ABC News, owned by the Walt Disney Company, for defamation in March 2024 over comments from anchor George Stephanopoulos portraying the president as “liable for rape.” (A federal jury found President Trump liable for sexual assault in a 2023 civil case, but not rape.) The company settled the case in December. In late April, Trump posted comments on his social platform Truth Social that appeared to threaten The New York Times with the possibility of legal action in the future.
