Washington DC - Members of the Federal Communications Commission are facing allegations of accepting lavish gifts from Paramount as they were reviewing the company's mergers.
According to ProPublica, two watchdog groups – Democracy Defenders Fund and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – filed a complaint on Friday citing reporting by the outlet that commissioners have been accepting gifted tickets to the Kennedy Center Honors gala from CBS or its parent company, Paramount, for years.
The report found that since 2016, seven of the 10 commissioners have accepted tickets worth more than $260,000.
Most notably, some of the gifts were accepted as the FCC was in the process of reviewing major Paramount business decisions, including two major mergers.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr's recent financial statements revealed he has accepted tickets eight times since he was first appointed as a commissioner in 2017, totaling over $75,000.
During the December gala, Carr and his wife joined Paramount's CEO and executives in a private skybox valued at $125,000 a ticket, though his statement only recorded it as being worth $12,390.
The watchdog groups are calling for the FCC to be investigated, as federal ethics rules ban employees from accepting gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by, or seeks official action from their agency.
Last year, the FCC approved a merger between Paramount and Skydance and is currently reviewing another merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
While critics argue that Carr and others have compromised the FCC's impartiality, the FCC claims the gifts have been cleared by ethics officers as consistent with ethics law.