Trump Ordered Gary Cohn to Pressure DOJ to Block AT&T-Time Warner Merger

President Donald Trump ordered then-economic adviser Gary Cohn in the summer of 2017 to put pressure on the Justice Department to sue to block the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger, according to a story posted in the New Yorker.

Cohn, then serving as director of the National Economic Council, was called into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, according to the story from Jane Mayer. Trump said 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 refused to carry out the order, and told Kelly, "Don't you f--ing dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way."

The possibility of White House interference in DOJ merger decisions has for some time raised concerns among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the new chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, recently told Variety that he wants to look into the possibility of White House interference in DOJ merger decisions, including the AT&T-Time Warner transaction.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block the merger in November, 2017, but a federal judge ruled in favor of the companies after a six-week trial. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision last week.

AT&T and Time Warner executives have held suspicions that they were targeted because of Trump's hatred of CNN, then a unit of Time Warner's Turner networks. Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T, called it the "elephant in the room" at the time that the lawsuit was filed. In a pre-trial hearing, the companies' legal team sought to start discovery on the potential for White House interference, but the judge rejected that effort.

Makan Delrahim, the chief of the antitrust division, has denied that the White House influenced the decision to file suit. He said in a sworn declaration in February of 2017, that "my consideration of this transaction took no account of the views of anyone else (including then-candidate or President Trump or anyone at the White House) as to CNN's editorial content or exercise of First Amendment rights. Those were not factors that played any role in my consideration of the Transaction and any suggestions to the contrary are false."

Delrahim served as deputy White House counsel before he was confirmed in September, 2017, as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division.

Trump announced his opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger shortly after the transaction was announced in October, 2016.

Attorney George Conway, a critic of Trump and the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, wrote on Twitter that if proven, "such an attempt to use presidential authority to seek retribution for the exercise of First Amendment rights would unquestionably be grounds for impeachment."