Trump Reportedly Tried to Have DOJ Block AT&T-Time Warner Merger to Punish CNN For Coverage

[DonViejo]

Source: Mediate



by Aidan McLaughlin | Mar 4th, 2019, 9:19 am

-snip-

According to the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer, back in the summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit to stop AT&T’s acquisition of CNN’s parent company Time Warner, Trump ordered his chief economic adviser Gary Cohn to intervene.

Mayer reports:

According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you fucking dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-reportedly-tried-to-have-doj-block-att-time-warner-merger-to-punish-cnn-for-coverage/

[exboyfil]

1. Will Cohn and Kelly go under oath

and testify to this request? This alone is an impeachable offense.

Come on for these guys would Pence be worse? I don't understand why they aren't lined up outside Senators' and Representatives' doors.

[onenote]

7. I doubt very much any effort would be made to impeach Trump over this.

While his motivation for wanting DoJ to oppose the merger may have been to punish Time Warner, owner of CNN, his message apparently was never conveyed to DoJ, which independently found reasons (reasons that many progressives agreed with) for opposing the merger.

I can imagine that Cohn and/or Kelly might testify that Trump wanted them to push DoJ to block the merger; my guess is that they would testify that the reasons for Trump's opposition were never expressly stated by him. Nothing in the New Yorker article suggests that there is any hard evidence that backs up the speculation/assumption that he opposed it more because he wanted to punish CNN and/or help Fox than because he cared about the antitrust issues.

[DonaldsRump]

2. Nixon and the ITT affair

This was one of the lesser scandals of Nixon because it got buried with the much greater criminality by Nixon and his men. The issue there was that the huge conglomerate ITT had given a $500,000 contribution for the Repub National Convention in 1972 and was, at the same time, acquiring an insurance company.

The issue was whether Nixon told then AG Richard Kleindienst to clear the merger, apparently as a quid pro quo. Kleindienst pled guilty to a misdemeanor to lying about whether he had spoken to Nixon about the transaction and resigned as AG at the same time that Dean, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman were removed on April 30, 1973.

That was a huge scandal back in 1972-74....today, with the rampant criminality going on each day with this band of idiots, this news seems to be a nothing burger.

The lasting damage from Trump be the declining morality and declining concern that people have over truly serious issues.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Thank you.

When I read the OP I immediately wondered if Nixon was corrupt enough to try something similar.

[mtngirl47]

3. Lock him up FFS! n/t

[Cognitive_Resonance]

4. Abuse of power. nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. On CNN, @SenJohnKennedy says he's not bothered by New Yorker report that Trump ordered DOJ....

On CNN, @SenJohnKennedy says he's not bothered by New Yorker report that Trump ordered DOJ to attempt to block AT&T/Time Warner merger because he wanted to punish CNN: "I think it's perfectly acceptable for the president of the United States to have an opinion."

Link to tweet