While on the campaign trail last fall, Trump threatened to kill AT&T’s proposed merger with Time Warner — “a deal we will not approve in my administration.” Then in January, Trump blasted Time Warner’s CNN (“Your organization is terrible”) at his first news conference as president-elect. So AT&T’s chief executive made a pilgrimage to Trump Tower to try to mollify the president, and worryingly, we don’t know what was said or promised at the meeting. Never mind that the proposed merger is a law-enforcement matter for the Justice Department; Trump’s behavior hints that he feels merger decisions should be based at least in part on his snap judgment or personal animus toward a company or business sector.
We’ve seen this movie before. In 1971, President Richard Nixon called Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst about the department’s handling of an antitrust case involving International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). “The ITT thing — stay the hell out of it. Is that clear?” Nixon instructed. “My order is to drop the Goddamn thing. Is that clear?”
It does not strain the imagination to envision Trump making a call like that. Not too long ago, he repeatedly threatened to jail Hillary Clinton. After the election, he reversed position. Both statements suggest he thinks that the decision whether to prosecute should be made based on his whims.
Trump has many other reasons to want to meddle with the department.
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