Rebecca Ballhaus

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government-watchdog group, called on the Office of Government Ethics, the federal agency that oversees ethics rules, to investigate whether the Federal Communications Commission complied with financial-conflict rules when it permitted several top officials to own stocks in apparent violation of the agency’s own rules. The Campaign Legal Center said FCC officials owned stocks in cable

A draft of an executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign on May 28 would seek to limit the broad legal protection that federal law currently provides social-media and other online platforms. The draft order would make it easier for federal regulators to hold companies such as Twitter and Facebook liable for curbing users’ speech, for example by suspending their accounts or deleting their posts. The executive order would mark the Trump administration’s most aggressive effort to take action against social-media companies, which the president has threatened to do for years.

Twitter for the first time applied a fact-checking notice to a tweet from President Donald Trump, hours after the company denied a widower’s request to delete the president’s posts circulating conspiracy theories about his wife’s death. Twitter applied the fact-checking notices to two tweets from the president about the potential for fraud involving mail-in ballots. With a small label—“Get the facts about mail-in ballots”—and a link to more information, Twitter alerted its users that those claims were unsubstantiated.

Federal prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funneled donations to President Trump’s inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy. The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations. The criminal probe by the Manhattan

As a presidential candidate in August 2015, Donald Trump huddled with a longtime friend, media executive David Pecker, in his cluttered 26th floor Trump Tower office and made a request. 'What can you do to help my campaign?' he asked, apparently. Pecker, chief executive of American Media Inc., offered to use his National Enquirer tabloid to buy the silence of women if they tried to publicize alleged sexual encounters with Trump. Less than a year later, Trump asked Pecker to quash the story of a former Playboy model who said they’d had an affair.

AT&T said it made payments to Essential Consultants LLC, a company created by Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, in 2017 for “insights” into the Administration at a time when the telecommunications giant needed government approval for an $85 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc. Cohen used Essential Consultants LLC in October 2016 to make a $130,000 payment to former adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, who had alleged she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006. AT&T made four payments to Cohen’s firm totaling

Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, is shutting down following disclosures about its use of Facebook data and the campaign tactics it pitched to clients. Apparently, the company decided to close its doors because it was losing clients and facing mounting legal fees in the Facebook investigation. The firm is shutting down effective May 2 and employees have been told to turn in their computers.

Apparently, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has requested that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, turn over documents as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Mueller asked the firm in the fall to turn over the emails of any Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign, in a sign that the special counsel is probing the Trump campaign’s data operation.

President Donald Trump’s aides have also been pressing for more restraint by the president on Twitter, and some weeks ago they organized what one official called an “intervention.”

Aides have been concerned about the president’s use of Twitter to push inflammatory claims, notably his unsubstantiated allegation from March that his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had wiretapped his offices. In that meeting, aides warned President Trump that certain kinds of comments made on Twitter would “paint him into a corner,” both in terms of political messaging and legally, one official said. Ken Duberstein, a former chief of staff to former President Ronald Reagan, said President Trump should not “take the bait of a shouted question or the shiny silver dollar of being able to tweet. Because then the rest of the agenda gets left on the cutting room floor.”

AT&T’s blockbuster deal promises to reshape the media landscape—if the companies can navigate a series of obstacles, including possible opposition from US antitrust authorities and objections by lawmakers and media and telecom rivals.

Even before the deal was announced, members of Congress, industry groups and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump began to question it, contending the combination of AT&T’s millions of wireless and pay-television subscribers with Time Warner’s stable of TV networks and programming would limit competition and hurt consumers. Trump said if elected he wouldn’t approve the deal “because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called on the Administration to block the merger. Sen Tim Kaine (D-VA), the Democratic nominee for Vice President, said he shared the “concerns and questions” raised by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) that the deal could lead to higher costs and fewer choices. “Pro-competition and less concentration, I think, is generally helpful, especially in the media.” The Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission both declined to comment.