Federal Communications Commission officials accepted expensive Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount and CBS while the company needed FCC approval for major media mergers, according to ethics disclosures and a ProPublica investigation.
The most recent episode came in December, when FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty and a guest attended the Kennedy Center Honors on tickets from Paramount valued at more than $12,000, ProPublica reported, citing her disclosure records. Five months earlier, Trusty had cast a key vote approving Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr also attended the December gala with his wife, sitting in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other Paramount and CBS executives, Bloomberg reported. Kennedy Center guidance listed such seats at $125,000 each. Carr’s financial disclosure for last year has not been made public, so ProPublica said it could not confirm whether Paramount gave him the seats.
The timing is the problem. Paramount was then pursuing Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that later became a $110 billion merger agreement requiring FCC review. The combination would put CBS, CNN, Paramount+, HBO Max and other networks and platforms under one corporate roof.
Federal ethics rules bar employees from taking gifts from companies regulated by their agency or seeking official action from it, unless a narrow exception applies. Four ethics specialists told ProPublica that Carr and Trusty should not participate in the FCC’s review of the Paramount-Warner deal.
Walter Shaub, who led the Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017, told ProPublica that senior regulators should not accept gifts from companies affected by their decisions. Virginia Canter, a former ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department and SEC, said commissioners who took the tickets could not take part in the matter without harming the integrity of the process.
The FCC said in a statement that agency ethics officers have long cleared commissioner attendance at the event, across Republican and Democratic administrations. An FCC official familiar with internal legal advice told ProPublica that commissioners were told the gala qualified under the “widely attended gathering” exception. The person was not authorized to discuss the advice publicly.
That exception is not a magic cloak. Under federal rules, the event must advance agency work, and the agency’s interest in attendance must outweigh concerns about improper influence. A 2007 Office of Government Ethics memo said performing arts events do not qualify merely because officials can mingle at receptions. Canter told ProPublica that applying the exception to the Kennedy Center Honors would be a “stretch.”
ProPublica’s review found that seven of the 10 FCC commissioners who served since 2016 accepted Kennedy Center tickets from CBS or Paramount worth more than $260,000. Carr’s past disclosures show at least seven ticket gifts since his 2017 appointment, totaling more than $63,000. Former FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel also attended regularly. Nathan Simington, a former commissioner, told ProPublica he declined invitations because the event “wasn’t my cup of tea.”
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez did not attend the December 2025 gala, but she previously accepted Paramount tickets in 2023 and 2024. She told ProPublica she followed agency advice. Gomez voted against the Paramount-Skydance merger, criticizing the approval as imposing unusual government control over newsroom decisions.
The FCC currently has three commissioners: Carr, Trusty and Gomez. A full commission vote requires a three-member quorum, so any recusal could complicate the Warner review. Carr could instead direct staff to act, as he did in another recent broadcast acquisition, but ethics experts told ProPublica that any Paramount decision is likely to draw legal challenges.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
