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Trump’s Jaw-Dropping Free Pass to CBS Nepo Baby Exposed

DOJ lawyers were leaning toward challenging David Ellison’s bid for CNN’s parent company—until DOJ leadership stepped in.

The Justice Department has cleared the way for Paramount CEO David Ellison’s next media takeover, even though the department’s own lawyers found grounds for challenging the move, according to an explosive new report.

Career lawyers at the DOJ spent months investigating the Trump-friendly nepo baby’s $111 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery—home to CNN and HBO—and were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit challenging the deal on the grounds that it would be anticompetitive and violate antitrust law, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

But on Friday, the DOJ’s senior leadership shut down the investigation before the lawyers in the antitrust division could make a final recommendation, according to the Journal. The move effectively greenlights the deal at the federal level.

Ellison, who took control of CBS last August after securing federal approval, has been actively seeking to ingratiate himself with Trump.

In April, the 43-year-old tech billionaire hosted the president for a dinner “honoring the Trump White House, an eyebrow-raising affair given that it is highly unusual for a national media organization to sponsor an event honoring powerful politicians.

The dinner was attended by Bari Weiss, the anti-woke opinion journalist Ellison installed as CBS editor-in-chief, as well as Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general and Trump’s former personal lawyer.

Last December, Ellison was said to have visited Washington to reassure Trump administration officials that he would overhaul CNN if he bought Warner, according to a report in the Journal.

In May, Trump said CNN had become “woke” and gleefully welcomed the merger.

“Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

The career lawyers whose review of the Paramount-Warner deal was prematurely shut down had questioned whether a combined company could uphold its commitment to make 30 theatrical releases a year under its expanded debt load.

When reached for comment by the Daily Beast, a DOJ spokeswoman claimed that the investigation into the deal found that it would “increase competition.”

“The Antitrust Division conducted a thorough investigation to assess whether the proposed transaction would harm competition,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “The investigatory record indicated that the transaction will increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, benefiting American consumers and workers.”

The spokeswoman’s statement appeared to stitch together excerpts from a lengthy public statement the DOJ released on Friday declaring its support for the merger.

The DOJ also referred the Daily Beast to an X post from Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr., who replied to Sadie Gurman, one of the authors of the Journal’s report, “a team of career lawyers never reached out to anyone in their leadership chain of command to express this, but instead reached out to you? Please let your anonymous sources know that my door is always open.”

The White House and Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

The deal has been heavily criticized for placing two national news organizations under Ellison’s control. Once the deal goes through, Weiss is expected to oversee all news editorial across both CBS News and CNN, Axios reported last week. Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, is hoping to close the deal by July, according to Status.

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More than 200 journalists and program makers signed a letter last month warning of the impact that Paramount’s acquisition of Warner will have on CNN and HBO, calling it “a political arrangement to circumvent constitution safeguards, with severe consequences for American democracy.”

Meanwhile, more than 1000 Hollywood writers, actors, and directors released a letter in April saying the deal would harm Hollywood. The letter was signed by Bryan Cranston, Joaquin Phoenix, Tiffany Haddish, Lily Gladstone, and Yorgos Lanthimos, among others.

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