As David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance continues to pursue its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the company has hired a new leader for its public policy and regulatory teams: Rene Augustine, a former attorney in President Trump’s White House and one-time deputy in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
Augustine will join Paramount Skydance on Feb. 17 as senior VP, global public policy. She reports to Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim, who joined the company last fall.
Augustine from 2019-21 had served as deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, in charge of international and policy, during Trump’s first term. In that capacity, she worked under Delrahim, who had been the DOJ’s assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division.
Most recently, Augustine spent nearly five years in advisory roles at the Kennedy Center, first as a presidential appointee to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts and subsequently as co-chair of the National Committee for the Performing Arts.
Trump earlier this month declared that the Kennedy Center would be shut down for two years, starting this summer, for a “complete rebuilding.” In December, the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” and Trump’s name was affixed to the building’s exterior, a move that led numerous artists to cancel their engagements.
In her role as Paramount Skydance’s head of public policy, Augustine will be responsible for developing strategic policies “that advance our business objectives and building key diplomatic relationships that are important for advancing those objectives globally,” per a memo Delrahim sent to staff Friday announcing her appointment. “Augustine will be based in Paramount Skydance’s Washington, D.C., office and will “regularly interact with teams in Los Angeles, New York and around the world.”
Delrahim, in his memo, wrote, “I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with Rene at the Department of Justice, at the Senate and at the White House and know she is uniquely qualified and experienced to represent Paramount across a variety of policy, regulatory and diplomatic matters.”
Her appointment comes after Paramount hired lobbyist Ted Lehman, who has more than 20 years of experience on Capitol Hill and the private sector, as senior VP, head of U.S. public policy and government affairs.
Augustine, as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, oversaw the division’s international antitrust and its competition, policy and advocacy sections, where she developed international antitrust enforcement policy and represented the U.S. in engagements with foreign competition enforcers in international forums.
She also held senior roles at the Trump White House, including as special assistant to the president and senior associate counsel in the White House Counsel’s Office. From 2005-09, Augustine was an associate counsel to President George W. Bush.
Augustine’s career includes legislative experience as senior counsel to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Earlier in her career, she practiced law at Covington & Burling and served as a federal judicial law clerk. She also taught as an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University Law School and worked as a staff attorney providing legal services to underserved communities.
Augustine holds a law degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Duke University. She also completed executive education programs at MIT Sloan School of Management focused on blockchain technologies and machine learning in business. She is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia, Maryland and California (inactive) and to the U.S. Supreme Court.