stLouISTHow Paramount and DC Bar enabled Trump’s ‘weaponization’ slush fund
This week, President Donald Trump once again hijacked the court system to launder corruption. He purportedly “settled” litigation with his own Department of Justice in exchange for a $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate political allies who claim to be victims of weaponization, as well as a deal to never investigate alleged tax evasion by the Trump family.
That’s the same DOJ that outside its headquarters flies a giant banner of Trump — making his best tough guy face, with his eyes uncharacteristically open. But before the DOJ unfurled its “Dear Leader” flag, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr pinned Trump’s gilded image to his lickspittling lapel and renounced his agency’s independence.
And before the DOJ’s latest mockery of the legal system, Carr facilitated Trump’s shakedown of CBS parent Paramount, holding up regulatory approval of Paramount’s merger with Skydance until it paid Trump $16 million to settle his absolutely frivolous lawsuit over the editing of an interview with Kamala Harris by “60 Minutes.” He approved the merger two days after Trump got the check.
That could’ve been the end of it. Last July, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an ethics complaint against Carr, an attorney, with the Washington, D.C. Bar, making what we thought was an uncontroversial argument: It’s unethical for officers of the court to help the president use those courts to extract palm grease from companies they regulate.
Had the D.C. Bar disbarred or even merely disciplined Carr, Trump’s lawyers would know that facilitating self-dealing schemes might cost them something. It may not have stopped the administration’s avalanche of grift, but it might have hindered DOJ lawyers from so readily signing off on such blatant lawlessness.
It didn’t, though. Instead, Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III wrote in a letter dismissing our complaint that the ethics rules we cited had not previously been applied in similar contexts. He also included an incoherent argument that the First Amendment gave Carr some sort of wiggle room. As if to underscore his lack of First Amendment expertise, he marked his dismissal letter “confidential” (an alarmingly common practice among disciplinary offices). Here’s a pro tip: Don’t try to impose a prior restraint on an organization with “freedom of the press” in its name.
If the administration is going to go after you anyway, you might as well do your job.
But it should be obvious why there were no analogous precedents for the relief our complaint sought. No prior FCC chair helped a sitting president turn a courtroom into a conduit for bribery.
And even if the First Amendment could arguably acquiesce Carr’s anti-speech investigations of licensees (it can’t — just consult the statute under which the FCC operates or ask the version of Carr from before he put on that lapel pin), that has nothing to do with facilitating presidential shakedowns. There’s no universe where that’s protected by the Constitution.
The ethics rules’ prohibitions on “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” and “conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice” were drafted broadly on purpose — it’s impossible to predict every way future attorneys may misbehave. There’s plenty of room in those rules to crack down on Carr if the disciplinary office wanted to.
The reality is that Fox did what attorney disciplinary commissions frequently do — find an excuse to duck out of politically charged complaints (notwithstanding the occasional case that is too egregious for even them to ignore, e.g., Ed Martin and Rudy Giuliani). Lawyers joke about the inefficacy of disciplinary offices — it’s an open secret that they operate more like protection rackets for members of the bar than serious regulators.
Now we see where that cowardice led — a $16 million corrupt settlement begot a $1.8 billion one.
And the D.C. Bar’s hands-off approach certainly hasn’t earned it any goodwill from the administration. The DOJ filed suit against Fox and the D.C. Bar earlier this month, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche calling it a “blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes,” apparently because it disciplined the likes of Jeffrey Clark for trying to overturn the 2020 election.
There’s some good news. Lawyers from the Public Integrity Project are fighting the DOJ’s shenanigans in court, and the Legal Accountability Center has filed a new attorney disciplinary complaint against Carr. It’s an opportunity for Fox and the D.C. Bar to right past wrongs. If the administration is going to go after you anyway, you might as well do your job.
And maybe after you’re done battling Blanche’s political attacks, you can apply for some compensation from that weaponization fund you enabled.