The Democratic attorneys general trying to stop Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery are now dealing with another problem: questions about their own political and financial connections to people and organizations tied to Netflix, one of Paramount's biggest competitors.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is facing calls for an investigation over a donation trail linked to Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings' family. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has a separate problem: an ethics case involving travel paid for by the Attorney General Alliance, which counts Netflix among its corporate sponsors. Ford also received campaign contributions this summer from Netflix board member Susan Rice.
Bonta is part of the 12-state lawsuit seeking to block Paramount’s Warner Bros. Discovery deal. Republican attorney general nominee Michael Gates and the California Republican Party called for an investigation Friday after campaign-finance records showed Hastings’ wife, Patty Quillin, gave $1 million to Smart Justice California Action Fund in March 2022. Two months later, the group contributed $150,000 to a committee supporting Bonta’s campaign for attorney general.
Gates said the money warranted an investigation.
“Rob Bonta has turned his taxpayer-funded office into a favor factory for his political bosses and donors. He’s pursuing politically-motivated litigation against a competitor for a company that’s bankrolled his PAC.”
Bonta's office rejected the allegation and said its decision followed an antitrust review that included both Netflix and Paramount as possible buyers of Warner Bros. Notably, the office declined to answer whether Bonta ever communicated with Netflix, Hastings, or Quillin about the case, or whether he considered recusing himself.
“The lawsuit against Paramount resulted from clear cut antitrust analysis, based on the facts and the law. In February 2026, our office announced an investigation into the purchase of Warner Bros. by either Netflix or Paramount.”
In other words: Trust us.
It gets worse for Bonta on the merits. The Justice Department came out the other way. After an eight-month investigation involving more than two million documents, federal antitrust officials concluded the Paramount deal was unlikely to hurt competition and could give Netflix, Amazon and Disney a stronger rival. Britain’s competition regulator cleared it too, leaving the state lawsuit as the main regulatory obstacle.
Bonta is also taking heat from his own side. Gov. Gavin Newsom and gubernatorial frontrunner Xavier Becerra have called for settlement talks, while Hollywood executives are reportedly pressing Bonta to make a deal as Paramount threatens to move operations out of California.
Then there's Aaron Ford, who brings his own baggage to the pile.
A Nevada Commission on Ethics review panel found enough evidence earlier this year to move forward with complaints accusing Ford of accepting expensive international travel from the Attorney General Alliance and using official government social media accounts to promote his gubernatorial campaign. The commission has not found that Ford violated state ethics law.
Ford's office denies wrongdoing in that case and says he expects the commission to find that he complied with Nevada's ethics rules, a claim the advancing ethics case is already complicating.
That's where the Paramount lawsuit enters the picture. Netflix is a sponsor of the Attorney General Alliance, and Susan Rice, who sits on Netflix's board, donated $2,000 directly to Ford in two contributions in late June.
Neither man has been proven to have filed the lawsuit as a favor to Netflix. But that's a low bar when the circumstantial case is this stacked: two Democratic attorneys general blocking a deal that federal and British regulators already cleared, both with documented financial ties to the one company that benefits most if the deal dies.
At some point, the pattern stops looking like coincidence and starts looking like a protection racket for Netflix dressed up in antitrust clothing.
Editor’s Note: Hollywood, academia, and liberal elites are out of touch with the average American.
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