New scrutiny for Trump over AT&T merger
Congressional Democrats are intensifying their investigation into whether President Trump sought to block the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger due to his longtime feud with CNN.
Democrats in the House and Senate are demanding administration documents related to the deal while pressing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open its own investigation into how the White House handled the merger process.
Rep. David Cicilline (R.I.), a top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that Congress has “a responsibility to call in witnesses” about the issue, hinting at a possible hearing in the future.
Why Dems are revisiting the issue: The increased scrutiny comes after The New Yorker reported last week that Trump encouraged Gary Cohn, his former top economic adviser, to push DOJ lawyers to sue to block the merger.
Though Cohn reportedly said he would not allow Trump to influence the merger, the DOJ did sue to block it in 2017, a case the government lost in court and on appeal last month.
Trump has feuded with CNN, owned by Time Warner, arguing that its coverage of his administration is unfair.
The response: The DOJ has repeatedly denied that Trump’s dislike of CNN influenced its handling of the case.
The DOJ this week confirmed that it had received the letters from Democrats revisiting how the agency handled the merger. It pointed The Hill to previous statements Delrahim has made denying political interference.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was “not aware” of any conversation in which Trump directed Cohn to try to block the merger.
Democrats, though, intend to revisit the allegations of potential interference by the White House.
What’s next: A spokesman for Cicilline, chairman of the House Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee, told The Hill that scrutiny of the AT&T-Time Warner merger will be “on the agenda” but that there are no further actions planned as of now.
Cicilline and Nadler, in letters to the White House and DOJ last week, requested documents and communications between 2016 and 2019 about the proposed merger.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also weighed in on Friday, pressing the head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, for answers to a series of questions about potential interference in the merger by the White House.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked the DOJ to open an investigation into the White House’s potential involvement and make its findings public.
