NETFLIX AND SHILL? Aaron Ford’s Paramount Lawsuit Raises Questions Over Cash From Netflix Board Member

Nevada Attorney General and Democrat gubernatorial nominee Aaron Ford is facing fresh questions over his decision to help block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after a new report revealed financial and institutional ties connecting Ford to one of Paramount’s biggest competitors, Netflix.

Ford joined California Attorney General Rob Bonta and ten other Democrat attorneys general in July to sue over Paramount’s $110 billion Warner Bros. acquisition, arguing the transaction would reduce competition and increase prices. The lawsuit presents a potentially serious obstacle for Paramount, which is trying to build a media company capable of competing more aggressively with Netflix and Disney. 

Now comes the awkward part.

The Daily Wire reports Netflix is a lead sponsor of the Attorney General Alliance, an organization connected to Ford and most of the attorneys general participating in the lawsuit. Even more directly, Netflix board member and former Biden White House official Susan Rice donated $2,000 to Ford’s gubernatorial campaign just weeks before Ford joined the lawsuit targeting Netflix’s competitor. 

Netflix’s own corporate website confirms Rice currently sits on its board of directors. Rice previously served as Barack Obama’s national security adviser and Joe Biden’s domestic policy adviser before returning to the Netflix board after leaving the Biden administration. 

That does not prove Ford filed the lawsuit because of Rice’s contributions or Netflix’s interests. But for Nevada’s top law enforcement officer, already staring down an ethics controversy involving the same Attorney General Alliance, the optics are radioactive.

The Nevada Commission on Ethics advanced a complaint earlier this year involving allegations that Ford accepted luxury travel funded through the Attorney General Alliance, which itself receives corporate funding. Investigators also examined allegations involving the use of official government social media accounts to amplify Ford’s gubernatorial campaign. A review panel found sufficient evidence for the Commission to consider whether violations occurred. Ford has the opportunity to contest the allegations. 

So the emerging picture is remarkable. Ford associates with an organization funded by corporate interests, accepts campaign money from a board member of Netflix, then deploys the power of Nevada’s Attorney General’s Office in litigation that could kneecap a transaction designed to create a stronger Netflix competitor.

Nothing to see here. Just another day in the swamp with better streaming options.

The Daily Wire reported that Ford’s office did not respond to its request for comment. Paramount, meanwhile, has blasted the states’ antitrust theory as legally and factually flawed. A prolonged court fight could cost Paramount hundreds of millions of dollars, with the company potentially owing Warner Bros. shareholders roughly $650 million each quarter if the transaction remains delayed beyond October. 

The controversy lands at a particularly dangerous moment for Ford.

He is no longer merely Nevada’s attorney general. He is the Democrat nominee trying to take the Governor’s Mansion from Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo this November, turning every ethics question surrounding his current office into a preview of how he might wield considerably more power from Carson City. 

And Nevada is not the state Democrats once took for granted. Lombardo toppled Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2022, then Donald Trump carried Nevada two years later, breaking a Republican presidential drought in the Silver State that stretched back to 2004.

Ford is asking those increasingly skeptical Nevada voters to trust him with the governor’s office.

Before they do, they may want an answer to a much simpler question: When Aaron Ford brings the power of Nevada government crashing down on a company, whose interests is he really protecting?

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