Democratic lawmakers are readying aggressive oversight of Paramount Skydance’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount’s top lawyer said Tuesday the company is “happy to cooperate.”
“We’re not naive to know that politics does not exist,” Paramount Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim said. “We’re not shocked about that. We’ll be happy to cooperate and really engage with Republicans and Democrats about any issue and aspect. This merger is actually going to be good not only for California, it’ll be good for America.”
Paramount has been “transparent” and responsive to lawmaker’s concerns,” Delrahim — who served as Trump’s antitrust chief in his first administration — said at POLITICO’s The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit.
The merger of the media companies has become a flashpoint for Democratic outcry, as the party outlines a range of grievances that could resurface as a sweeping oversight effort if they take control of one or both chambers of Congress next year. Top Democrats already insist Paramount CEO David Ellison and his company have been less than forthcoming.
Democrats have blasted Paramount’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery as a gross antitrust violation with serious national security implications due in part to the involvement of foreign investment in the deal. And they have slammed Ellison for paying a $16 million settlement to President Donald Trump, which Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts claimed could be “bribery in plain sight” in exchange for the administration’s approval of the company’s merger with Skydance last year.
Ellison also last week tried to tamp down Democratic concerns he would influence the independence of news network CNN after the deal, after Paramount’s takeover of CBS News last year led to outrage from journalists that leadership was pressing for more favorable coverage of the Trump administration.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is leading 12-states in a lawsuit to block the company’s current merger with Warner Bros., and last week, a federal judge scheduled a March trial to decide whether the acquisition violates antitrust law. Paramount agreed to punt the merger until next year — precisely when Democrats hope to be back in power.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement to POLITICO that Ellison “has evaded Congressional oversight of his work to create a mega-media empire designed to serve Donald Trump’s political agenda. If he thinks he can run out the clock on Congressional scrutiny of his massive media mergers and blockbuster corporate deals, he’s mistaken.”
Raskin called the investigation a “priority” and said “anyone involved should be prepared to answer under oath for their role in this brazen campaign to bend America’s free press to Donald Trump’s political, financial and personal will.”
Presented with Raskin’s statement, Delrahim said, “You can allege all you want. There is no corruption here.”
“We’d be happy to engage with Congressman Raskin and provide him, as we have, information,” Delrahim continued. “It sounds good, and I get it. It’s politics. But we respect his role and his important role in oversight. But just because he said so doesn’t mean that there is any corruption.”
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