Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Thursday asked the Justice Department for documents related to the decision to sue to block the AT&T takeover of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN, raising concern about White House involvement in efforts to block the merger.
CNN is one of President Donald Trump’s favorite punching bags, and he openly pledged during the 2016 campaign to block the merger between the news network’s parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T, which Democrats noted in their letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Democrats on the committee asked the Justice Department for all communications related to the lawsuit and the department’s negotiations with AT&T and Time Warner, as well as any documents that note contact with White House officials on the matter.
Democrats on the committee also highlighted several other news reports that Trump himself met with AT&T’s chief executive shortly before the inauguration about the merger and that Jared Kushner met with officials at Time Warner and CNN about CNN’s coverage of Trump. The letter also notes a report that officials in the Justice Department told Time Warner that it would need to offload CNN in order to successfully complete its merger with AT&T.
“This conduct is, in our opinion, an overt and unprecedented threat to interfere inappropriately with the deliberations of career officials at the Department of Justice,” the Democrats wrote in their letter. “Their mission is to enforce the laws of this nation independently and in a non-partisan manner—not to use them as a weapon to attack press outlets that serve their constitutional functions and express criticism of the President.”
The Justice Department sued AT&T and Time Warner in November, arguing that the merger would hurt American consumers. The lawsuit fueled speculation that the Trump administration was politically motivated to opposed the merger due to the President’s disdain for CNN.
Read the Democrats’ letter to Sessions:
Trump wanted an AG who would be “my Roy Cohn.” Looks like he has one on everything except the RussiaGate investigation from which Sessions was forced to recuse himself, despite the best laid joint plan of Trump, Nunes, Sessions, Burr, Coats and Pompeo.
In which Democrats create the appearance of defending corporate mega mergers and the resulting massive job losses. Not a good look. If the Trump “Administration” broke any laws in their handling of this matter, yes, by all means, hold them accountable. But make sure to stress that you aren’t supporting corporate mega mergers, which are demonstrably detrimental to the public good while enriching a chosen few…
Interfering with a media entities first amendment right to free and protected speech is a gross abuse of power and requires a thorough, unbiased investigation. A special counsel if necessary.
Whoa! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Time Warner and AT&T are certainly going to frame this as a First Amendment matter and not a business matter because the former creates a veneer of altruism cloaking a ruthless business agenda. This merger was definitely NOT in the public interest. But if the Trump “Administration” broke any laws in thwarting it. they should be held accountable. So hold off on building CNN any pedestals to stand on. It is a network that has consistently failed to broadcast in the public interest, and has plenty of blood on its hands for the Making of President Trump…
Only reason trump was even involved in this was b/c he wanted to retaliate against jeff zucker the ceo of cnn b/c trump felt that zucker wasnt crediting trump for his success after trump had him produce the apprentice days @ NBC…
typical asswipe…