'Pantomime': Ex-judge sounds alarm that Trump 'negotiating a bribe'

A retired judge and author is accusing CBS and President Donald Trump of "negotiating a bribe" under the guise of a federal lawsuit settlement, a former judge wrote in a new opinion piece in Newsweek.

"To be sure, a pantomime is being played out," wrote Thomas G. Moukawsher, a legal scholar and former Connecticut Superior Court judge. "The parties are pretending to be earnestly negotiating the settlement of a federal lawsuit. But they should not delude themselves. They are negotiating a bribe."

Moukawsher claimed the "bribe" is one of Trump's "new favorite grifts" whereby he files "bogus personal lawsuits against people he could hurt with presidential power," then demands a payoff.

"He has already collected $15 million from ABC News and $25 million from Meta for some seriously silly suits," he wrote.

"But this one's the worst," Moukawsher claimed. "Trump alleges that '60 Minutes' used an excerpt from a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris that made her look more coherent than if it had used a longer version. That's it. That's all. From this Trump has demanded $20 billion, payable to him personally. He says, but has offered no proof, that this bit of snipping set off a tsunami."

As icing on the cake, Trump claimed he's not the only victim because the '60 Minutes' piece "perpetrated a gigantic fraud on the public" and "devastated his revenues" from his Truth Social platform.

"The claims are too stupid for any adult to accept, not to mention any of the players involved who attended law school," Moukawsher wrote, "So why is CBS parleying for a payoff?"

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The answer has to do with quid pro quo: CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission so it can be bought by Skydance Media. And Trump's appointed chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, "has made it clear that Trump's complaint about CBS will come up in the discussions about whether to approve the transfer."

Moukawsher defines bribery in his piece as "directly or indirectly" giving "anything of value to any public official... with intent to influence an official act."

He continued, "Bribery also includes when an official 'demands' or 'seeks' 'anything of value personally or for any other person or entity,' in return 'for being influenced in the performance of any official act.'"

Moukawsher concluded by saying the statute of limitations for prosecuting people who bribe the president of the United States is five years, and that Trump has less than four years left in office.

"CBS, Trump, their lawyers, the mediator, and Redstone should run from this farce," he wrote, before a Democratic administration takes the helm.

Read the Newsweek article here.