Two U.S. House Democrats asked the White House and Justice Department to turn over documents that could show whether Republican President Donald Trump sought to intervene in the regulatory review of AT&T Inc’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc.
House Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler and Representative David Cicilline, who chairs a panel overseeing antitrust issues, asked them to turn over records after the New Yorker magazine reported this week that Trump directed then-National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn to use the Justice Department to block the deal.
The pair wrote that if accurate, Trump’s involvement would “constitute a grave abuse of power.” Last week, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling rejecting a Justice Department challenge to the deal filed in November 2017.The White House and Justice Department did not immediately comment.
AT&T lawyers said last year the deal may have been singled out for enforcement, citing as evidence statements by Trump as a candidate and as president that the deal was bad for consumers and the country.Story continues below advertisementTrump criticized the deal as a candidate in late 2016, saying it would concentrate too much media power in the hands of one owner, and later saying it would raise prices.
globebusiness I guess next the Democrats will investigate how many sheets of toilet paper Trump uses