CBS officially ousted Les Moonves without a $120 million severance earlier this week — but not before covering some major bills along the way.
The network dropped its CEO in September amid sexual misconduct allegations, which he has denied. Yet for two months afterward, CBS still covered Moonves' legal and executive fees, per a termination agreement agreed to in September and obtained by The New York Times Tuesday.
Misconduct accusations against Moonves first surfaced in a bombshell New Yorker report that was followed by a wave of more allegations. Moonves said three of the instances were consensual and denied knowledge of the rest. CBS terminated Moonves in September and continued an investigation into the claims, but still covered his "executive expenses" until the investigation concluded Monday. Those expenses could include legal fees that could've "easily run up to $20 million" and perhaps even $40-50 million, law professor and Times contributor Peter Henning says.
Sure, the investigation concluded Monday that CBS had cause to terminate Moonves without granting a $120 million severance. But CBS still had to pay to defend itself along the way, "probably facing substantially more than $50 million in fees" since September, Times columnist James B. Stewart writes. Moonves countered investigators' claims that he obstructed the investigation, saying Tuesday the matter was "far from over" and suggesting he'll continue to challenge CBS in court.
With no end to the legal saga in sight, CBS will likely conclude it's "cheaper to simply settle" with Moonves instead of "essentially pay[ing] someone they fired to sue them," Henning says. Read more of this column at The New York Times. Kathryn Krawczyk
Did House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) live up to expectations?
That's the question Republicans are asking this week as Ryan, once considered the future of the party, retires from Congress. While lawmakers were quick to offer praise of the departing speaker, some Republicans, both off and on the record, told The Washington Post they've been fairly unhappy with Ryan's tenure.
The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, for instance, said, "it's been a disappointing couple of years" of Ryan's leadership since President Trump took office. He added, "He was in a tough situation and didn't make the best of it." Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) made a similar observation, saying, “Two years have gone by and not much has been done."
During Ryan's tenure as speaker, the U.S. deficit has gone up nearly $350 billion, despite Ryan touting himself as a deficit hawk. The national debt also grew by $1.9 trillion. Ryan himself has said this is one of his regrets, and the Post reports that a number of Ryan's longtime friends said off-the-record that they're disappointed in his speakership, although they declined to say so publicly. One anonymous friend of Ryan's said, "Paul doesn't want to believe it’s all as bad as it is." Even those who like Ryan personally, the Post reports, are "grappling with whether he is responsible, alongside Trump, for the party’s drift."
Still, Ryan's colleagues have much more kind things to say about him, with some saying they appreciate that he took on a "thankless job;" allies have also said it's not fair to blame him solely for the rising debt, arguing he "would have done more if he had felt he could." Ryan's aides in discussing his legacy also point to the House's passage of bills concerning health care and food stamps, two bills that, as the Post points out, never actually became law. Brendan Morrow
