CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and “60 Minutes” boss Nick Bilton were kept in the dark about a deported migrant’s claim on immigration documents that he was gay ahead of a controversial segment that aired on the TV news magazine show last Sunday, The Post has learned.
Weiss and Bilton “went ballistic” when they learned from the Department of Homeland Security’s post on X on late Sunday that “60 Minutes” producers ignored information that Moussa Diawara appeared to have claimed he was gay on immigration documents in order to gain asylum in the US, a source close to the situation said.
Instead, the program, which aired last Sunday, reported that in 2012, a US judge ruled that Diawara could not be deported to Mali, a Muslim-majority nation, because he “converted to Christianity” eight months earlier.
A CBS News source said the segment, which was anchored by newbie contributor Gianna Toboni and produced by veteran Andy Court, intentionally left out the gay claim to “protect him.”
A person familiar with the matter added that Court made a deal with Diawari’s lawyer to not mention the gay claim and did not loop in Bilton or any other higher-ups at the show or network.
The blowback from the piece prompted Bilton to grill Toboni and Court in a closed-door meeting Thursday, The Post has learned. Sources say the network is weighing disciplinary action or firing Court, a 28-year veteran of the network with a slew of producing awards to his name.
According to a copy of DHS’s email obtained by The Post, on Oct. 6 — more than two weeks before the piece aired — DHS replied to several CBS News employees involved in the production telling them that Moussa Diawara, “who is married to a woman he shares two children with, oddly claimed he would be persecuted for homosexuality if returned home to Mali.”
A network source told The Post that DHS didn’t “explicitly state he was committing fraud in the email,” adding, “out of consideration for his safety they omitted his sexuality.”
It is unclear why the piece was not shelved or even scrapped. One source suggested that “60 Minutes” Bilton is “under a lot of pressure to deliver” and that he had “nothing else on deck.”
A network source denied that, saying the show has “dozens of stories in production they can get ready to air.”
Another insider speculated that the segment, which included a sitdown with Diawara in an undisclosed country in Africa, was expensive and that reshooting it would be “too costly.”
A person familar with the matter said Bilton would likely have amended the piece to include DHS’s information, however.
Court, Bilton, Weiss did not comment. CBS News declined to comment.
Ben Bogardus, Professor and Chair of the Journalism Department at Quinnipiac University, called the episode a “self-inflicted wound for journalists at a time when people think journalists are pushing an agenda.”
“It’s very disappointing to see something like this,” he said. “I would have erred on the side of including the information. To me, this is a big part of the story.”
A fourth CBS source chalked the whole thing up to inexperience.
It is unclear if there will be any fallout from the latest snafu, or if “60 Minutes” will update the story on this Sunday’s show.
But Weiss, who on Wednesday implored critics to “judge us by our journalism” during The Information’s WTF Summit, is keenly aware of blowback.
After the segment aired, the Trump administration went on a tear on social media, slamming “60 Minutes” for failing to mention the key reason why Diawari was deported to Ghana in July, more than a decade after he overstayed a tourist visa and claimed refugee status that barred him from being sent back to Mali.
DHS General Counsel James Percival revealed in an X post that he pulled Diawara’s immigration file and discovered “his claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is ‘gay,’ just in case you’re wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.”
A network source said all the noise is because “the ’60 Minutes’ story “struck a nerve with Percival and the DHS by laying out the facts about people being deported to third countries and ending up in places US immigration judges have ruled off limites.”
On his asylum application, Diawara — who has a wife and is described as a “Texas dad” by CBS News — rejoiced that “since I came to the USA I had the possibilities to express my feelings to men without any embarrassment [and] no reserve.”
“Although I was born as a boy, but things appeared differently for me as I was already having female behaviors and feelings,” he wrote. “I was more comfortable being intimate with boys rather than with girls.”
In the segment, Diawara alleged that within days of arriving in Ghana, authorities in the West African country forced him on a flight to Mali.
He has since fled Mali and is living in an undisclosed country, according to “60 Minutes.”
“This was basically giving the Trump administration more ammunition that ’60 Minutes’ has an agenda,” a TV insider said. “It’s embarrassing.”
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