FCC’s ’60 Minutes’ Probe Is ‘Weaponization’ of Agency, Commissioner Says

The Federal Communications Commission has broken with decades of precedent for the independent regulatory agency by charging into the highly politicized debate about bias in media and the fairness of the coverage produced by mainstream news organizations.

CBS News has been caught in the crossfire of newly appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s desire to investigate claims of “news distortion” in connection with a “60 Minutes” sit-down interview in October with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. It comes at a time when CBS’ parent company has a merger proposal pending with the FCC, which has to approve the transfer of CBS’ TV station licenses to the proposed new owner, Skydance Media. Amid this pitched environment, “60 Minutes” complied with the FCC’s request for the release of the full, unedited 53-minute interview conducted by correspondent Bill Whitaker, plus two other related interviews conducted for the Oct. 7 segment.

Carr’s move has set off alarm bells in journalism circles and among First Amendment advocates. Anna Gomez, one of two Democrats on the five-member commission (at present it is down to four members), has decried the chairman’s actions as “a fishing expedition” and as an “unprecedented, absolute weaponization of our licensing authority.”

FCC press representatives have not responded to six inquiries for comment from Variety over the past two weeks – another departure from longstanding FCC practice. Carr addressed the CBS complaint and investigation in a Feb. 7 interview with Fox News. Carr flatly asserted that Trump “has been right on these media bias issues.”

“This is an example, I think, where President Trump has been ahead of the curve,” Carr told Fox News. “He’s been ahead of it on a lot of things.  He came out early and said, ‘This thing [“60 Minutes” interview] looks like it has been pretty chopped up.’ And now we’ve been transparent with the American public. But stepping back, you know, as you indicated, I’ve been chair three weeks. And it’s been quite a difference in D.C. You know, President Trump is delivering right away as we see on the border. We’re driving down the cost of living. And he has been right on these media bias issues.”

Longtime FCC watchers said the closest analogy to the plainly political motivation of the complaint regarding “60 Minutes” goes back to the early 1970s after the Washington Post published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers that were highly damning of actions taken in Vietnam by the Defense Department and several White House regimes.

RELATED CONTENT: CBS Posts ’60 Minutes’ Transcripts, Videos Sought by FCC: ‘Not Doctored or Deceitful’

At that time, individuals believed to be affiliated with President Nixon filed challenges to the license renewals of TV and radio stations owned by the Post. Transcripts of White House conversations that emerged later amid the Watergate scandal revealed the lengths to which Nixon and his aides sought to hide his involvement. In that context, Carr’s statement that Trump is “right” while the commission is ostensibly investigating whether “60 Minutes” engaged in an ill-defined act of “news distortion” has been jaw-dropping.

Trump himself has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS over the Harris interview – another factor that has put up a roadblock to Paramount Global formally tying the knot with Skydance Media and its private equity partner RedBird Capital.

Lawyers for Paramount Global are known to have engaged in lawsuit settlement discussions with Trump’s attorneys in the interest of getting the merger blessed by the new regime in Washington. But given the lack of credible evidence of wrongdoing by CBS News — particularly after the Feb. 5 release of the unedited videos and transcripts of Harris interviews — the case has higher stakes than even Disney’s decision last month to reach a $15 million settlement with Trump in a defamation lawsuit. Given the facts of the case, a monetary settlement by CBS given to a sitting President presents a hornet’s nest of dangerous precedents for journalism and for the sake of legal and political ethical standards expected of public officials.

The original FCC complaint filed against WCBS-TV New York came from the Chicago-based Center for American Rights, which describes itself as a nonprofit law firm. It alleged that CBS deliberately edited Harris’ answers to change their meaning and to make her look better as a candidate as Election Day approached. Carr’s predecessor as FCC chair, Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, dismissed that complaint and two others filed by Center for American Rights, against ABC’s WPVI-TV Philadelphia and WNBC-TV New York, for Harris-related issues. Carr reinstated them as one of his first acts following Trump’s inauguration as President on Jan. 20.

After Carr reinstated the CBS complaint, the chairman opened up a comment period for the general public to offer their opinions on the unedited “60 Minutes” Harris interview and whether the final broadcast amounted to “news distortion.” That has the effect of extending through at least March 24 the process of the FCC’s review of the sale transaction. Skydance and Paramount Global had been hoping to close the deal by early April. The two sides initially clinched the initial agreement last July and have worked on the regulatory review ever since.

In his three weeks in office to date, Carr has also initiated a probe of radio and TV stations affiliated with public broadcasting networks NPR and PBS. The chairman sent letters to both organizations alerting them that the commission will scrutinize whether they have violated FCC rules barring public TV stations from airing commercials with some of their on-air mentions of donors and program underwriters. Nonprofit public TV stations are licensed under different rules than those of commercial broadcast stations that are supported by advertising.

Gomez asserted that Carr has also sidestepped protocol by initiating the comment period for CBS and other actions without input from the full commission. The FCC’s first public meeting under Carr’s leadership is set for Feb. 27. Before being tapped by Trump as an FCC commissioner in 2017, he spent five years as an FCC legal advisor and later served as general counsel.

FCC commissioner Geoffrey Starks, a Democrat, issued a statement following news reports of Carr’s letters to NPR and PBS. “Any attempt to intimidate these local media outlets is a threat to the free flow of information and the marketplace of ideas. The announcement of this investigation gives me serious concern,” Starks said on Jan. 30.

Gomez has been more vocal about the threat to journalism posed by the FCC’s aggressive stance on subjective questions of media bias. She has not been shy about calling out the chilling effect posed by Carr’s promises to flex FCC muscle in areas that would have been unthinkable, even under past Republican administrations. Gomez has been a member of the commission since 2023 and previously worked for the agency for 12 years, including a stint as senior legal advisor to then-chairman William Kennard. Carr’s statements to Fox News have only magnified Gomez’s concerns about the agency’s future under his direction.

“Now at the FCC, for years, we sort of walked away from our obligation to enforce the public interest standard on broadcasters,” Carr told Fox News. “And hopefully over these first couple of weeks people see that this is an FCC that is going to hold broadcasters accountable to their public interest obligations. We hope that we’re entering a period where we’ll see a lot of very fair coverage across our broadcast channels and our cable channels.”

Here, Gomez speaks with Variety about the propriety of the FCC’s actions and the potential harm that may come to broadcast journalism.

What do you think is Carr’s motivation for reinstating the complaints against CBS, ABC and NBC stations. What is the long-term goal?

What I have been observing is that the FCC has been busy implementing the will of the administration. By taking these actions, the FCC is ignoring that Congress set us up to act as an independent agency. These actions set a dangerous precedent that undermines the trust in the agency’s role as an impartial regulator, because our licensing authority is being weaponized in order to curtail the freedom of the press….The First Amendment is a pillar of American democracy, and our country needs a press that’s free from interference from regulators like myself. So the FCC should stop trying to keep up with this administration’s focus on partisan culture wars and instead return to our core focus of protecting consumers, promoting competition and securing our communications networks.

Have you met as a body since Carr became chairman?

We have monthly meetings and we have not had our first one yet.

Have you spoken with him directly about your concerns about the CBS situation?

I’ve spoken multiple times with the chairman about these enforcement proceedings.

How has he characterized his position?

He’s pretty consistent with what he says publicly. Part of my frustration is that in fact, these actions have not been taken in conjunction with the rest of the commissioners. They’ve been done at the bureau level with very little notice — actually with no notice to the commissioners. And I think that is leading to my having to react publicly as well. One of the things that is unprecedented in particularly the CBS action is the disclosure of the investigation, the release of the documents for public comment. It is just furthering the weaponization of our licensing processes in order to achieve a particular outcome.

Is it your sense that Carr sees this as a reason to block the CBS station license transfers?

I can’t speak for the chairman, but he has publicly tied the merger to this particular investigation and complaint. I think the most important thing to think about right now is the chilling effect that this has on a very important source of news broadcasting.

What does opening it up to public comment mean for the scale of the investigation?

We always want to hear from the public about matters, but there’s really no evidence to continue this investigation, which is why I keep calling it a fishing expedition. Now that the chairman has released the video and the transcript, it is clear that there is no violation of our rules. Instead, what we saw CBS do was just edit a clip for clarity and brevity.

Do you have a sense of where your fellow commissioners stand?

I really can’t speak for my colleagues, and it’s hard to see that far down the line. What I know is that this complaint should never have been reinstated, and instead it should have been dismissed. And it certainly should have been dismissed last week, so there really is no evidence to continue the investigation, no matter how long it takes.

What do you know about Carr’s larger agenda for the commission? Are you concerned about the weaponization, as you call it, extending into other areas of the FCC’s work?

Again, I’m not going to speak on behalf of the chairman, but based on his public statements, I think we will see more of the partisan culture wars that you have seen before. What I’m hoping is that the chairman will focus on our core mission and my priorities, which are ensuring that every American is connected to affordable Internet access, ensuring that our public safety providers have what they need, ensuring that the media, the independent media, continues to show localism, diversity and competition, and is strong, given the new ecosystem [across all media] and ensuring that our standing in the international world is one based on having the resources that our innovators need in order to do their very important work as well. So those are just standard goals, and those are my priorities. Hopefully this is what the FCC will put forward rather than engaging in these culture wars.

(Pictured: Anna Gomez)