Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr reportedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from Paramount while the media company was seeking federal approval for its transactions, according to a new investigation by ProPublica that has raised new ethics questions about the agency’s oversight of the entertainment conglomerate.
The nonprofit news organization reported Wednesday that Carr had accepted at least $63,000 worth of tickets to the Kennedy Center Honors gala from CBS or its parent company since joining the FCC in 2017. The annual black-tie event is sponsored by CBS and attended by entertainment, political and business titans.
The report comes as Paramount continues to navigate regulatory scrutiny surrounding its proposed $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would require approval from the FCC because it involves broadcast TV licenses. Ethics experts interviewed by ProPublica argued that accepting gifts from a company regulated by a commission like the FCC creates at least the appearance of a conflict of interest and said Carr should recuse himself from future decisions involving Paramount.
According to ProPublica, Carr and his wife attended last year’s Kennedy Center Honors from a private skybox alongside Paramount CEO David Ellison and other Paramount and CBS executives. While it is unclear who provided him and his wife with the seats — Carr’s most recent financial disclosure has not yet been made public — previous disclosures show he accepted gala tickets on at least seven occasions, the outlet noted.
The investigation also examined FCC commissioner Olivia Trusty, who ProPublica reported accepted more than $12,000 in Kennedy Center tickets after voting in favor of a Paramount-related merger. Four ethics experts told ProPublica that the commissioners’ decision to accept the gifts undermines the agency’s role to be impartial.
Federal ethics rules generally prohibit employees from accepting gifts from entities that they do business with, are regulated by or from which they seek official action. Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told ProPublica that no senior federal regulator should accept gifts from a company whose interests could be affected by the regulator’s official duties.
The FCC defended the practice, however, telling ProPublica that commissioners have long attended the Kennedy Center Honors under guidance from agency ethics officials and that Carr has followed applicable ethics rules.
“FCC chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”
