Hadas Gold

AT&T asked an appeals court to reject the Justice Department’s challenge of a federal judge’s decision approving its $85 billion merger with Time Warner. The telecom company, which closed the merger in June, responded to the Justice Department’s appeal, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove during trial that the deal would hurt competition and raise prices for consumers.

Judge Richard Leon issued a stinging rebuke to the Justice Department's attempt to block AT&T's $85 billion bid to acquire Time Warner. But that doesn't mean the case is over. The Justice Department can appeal the ruling, and the department's antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, is considering that option.  "I think the constitution and the statues allow for due process for all litigants and we will take a look at what the next steps are," Delrahim said.

Economist Carl Shapiro said his analysis of AT&T's purchase of Time Warner shows that US consumers could together pay an additional $571 million in the year 2021 if the deal is approved.

"The merger will in fact harm consumers and the harm is significant in terms of the dollar amount," Shapiro testified.

US District Judge Richard Leon has rejected a Justice Department motion to limit evidence AT&T can present in its defense of its proposed purchase of Time Warner. As a result of the ruling, AT&T gets to keep one key element of its argument for the deal, after previously losing another significant fight over its planned defense. The government had asked the court to exclude evidence of a November 2017 offer from Turner (a division of Time Warner that includes CNN, TBS, and TNT) to distributors including cable and satellite companies.

On the morning of May 10 as controversy swirled over the president abruptly firing his FBI chief amid an investigation of possible ties between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, the president met in the Oval Office with none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. But the meeting was closed press, meaning the rotating pool of photographers, reporters and camera operators who follow the president weren't allowed in. Yet photos of the three laughing and smiling were soon published by the Russian state news agency TASS. The Russian foreign ministry also tweeted photos of the meeting.

Asked by the print pooler why members of the Russian media were allowed into the meeting but no U.S. press was permitted, a White House official said, "Our official photographer and their official photographer were present, that's it," meaning TASS was considered the Russians' "official photographer."

The Sinclair-Tribune deal has set tongues wagging in Washington (DC) as to whether Sinclair, a Maryland-based television station owner that has often pushed right-leaning programming, will try to position itself as a rival to Fox News.

The Washington Post reported in December that during the 2016 campaign, news stories and features favorable to then-candidate Donald Trump or challenging Democrat Hillary Clinton were distributed to Sinclair stations on a “must-run” basis. Earlier that month, POLITICO reported that the president's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, told business executives the campaign had struck a deal with Sinclair for better media coverage, a characterization Sinclair disputed. The group also recently hired Boris Epshteyn, a White House aide who oversaw Trump's television surrogate operation, as chief political analyst. Given those recent decisions, many in Washington wonder if Sinclair has its sights set on Fox News.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump called the press “dishonest” and “scum.” He defended Russian strongman Vladimir Putin against charges of murdering journalists and vowed to somehow “open up our libel laws” to weaken the First Amendment. Since taking office, he has dismissed unfavorable coverage as “fake news” and described the mainstream media as “the enemy of the American people.” But behind that theatrical assault, the Trump White House has turned into a kind of playground for the press.

We interviewed more than three dozen members of the White House press corps, along with White House staff and outside allies, about the first whirlwind weeks of Trump’s presidency. Rather than a historically toxic relationship, they described a historic gap between the public perception and the private reality. “He built his career by being media-friendly. The last 18 months have been something of an aberration in his approach,” said Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a Trump confidant who has known the president for 20 years. “I’ve always said he’s just creating a negotiating position by calling the press the enemy of the people. I don’t think he believes that deep down.”

Despite prognostications that cable news would suffer a ratings dip after the 2016 election, the ratings from the first quarter of 2017 are proving that Washington DC under President Donald Trump is now a must-see spectacle across the country. Fox News had the best quarter in cable news history for 24 hour viewership, topping even the final quarter of 2016, which included election night. Each hour "broke a network record" for ratings among 18-34 year old viewers, Fox News said in a news release. Fox was the number one channel on cable overall, beating the likes of ESPN, HGTV, Nickelodeon and USA network for overall viewers in both primetime and total day.

Sen Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is introducing a bill that would give the Justice Department additional authority to investigate Russia's English-language news outlet RT America for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The bill, called the Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act, would increase the Department of Justice’s power to compel organizations to produce information about their foreign connections and the sources of their funding.

Sen Shaheen said the bill comes in response to a report from the director of national intelligence about Russian influence in the 2016 election, part of which examined RT America. That report stated that RT News was skirting disclosure requirements by using a nonprofit structure and that RT's programming intended to advance stories that benefited Russian interests. “We have good reason to believe that RT News is coordinating with the Russian government to spread misinformation and undermine our democratic process,” Shaheen said in a statement. “The American public has a right to know if this is the case.”

President-elect Donald Trump's transition is formally asking CNN to retract an article about Rep Tom Price (R-GA), Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary. In the story, CNN Senior Political Reporter Manu Raju reports that in 2016 Rep Price purchased shares in a medical device manufacturer days before introducing legislation that would delay regulations that would have directly benefited the company. After being published on Jan 16, the story quickly became another piece of ammunition for Democrats who have questioned Rep Price's financial transactions while in office, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) calling for an ethics investigation into rep Price.

In a statement, the Presidential Transition Team said the story "omitted facts and drew conclusions in an effort to attack" Rep Price, before laying out a series of what it says are facts that "were available to CNN." "The Presidential Transition Team requests that CNN retract this blatantly false story," the statement concludes.