Hill, The

Vice President Mike Pence said both he and President Trump support a "free and independent press. "But you can anticipate that the president and all of us will continue to call out the media when play fast and loose with the facts," Vice President Pence said. "The truth is that we have in President Trump someone who has a unique ability to speak directly to the American people, and when the media gets it wrong, I promise you, President Trump will take his case straight to the American people to set the record straight.”

Sen John McCain (R-AZ) defended the free press following criticism by President Trump, warning that a suppression of an "adversarial" press can lead to a dictatorial regime. When asked about the president's tweet from Feb 17 that accused the media of being the "enemy of the American people," Sen McCain took the opportunity to underscore the importance of free press in the modern era. "A fundamental part of that new world order was a free press. I hate the press, I hate you especially, but the fact is we need you, we need a free press," Sen McCain told Chuck Todd in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." "That's how dictators get started," he added later. "They get started by suppressing free press, in other words, a consolidation of power." "I am not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I am just saying we need to learn the lessons of history," he said, warning about any attempts to "shut down" the press.

Liberal groups are turning to new technology to help organize their fight against President Trump's administration. Activists are no strangers to harnessing technology and social media to promote their cause, but organizers say a new generation of tools is helping them build larger movements and sustain their protests. Organizers of high-profile events, including the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline and the record-setting Women's March on Inauguration weekend, are using a new platform from the nonprofit group The Action Network to improve communications with members and organize on the fly. Another new digital tool is Hustle, a growing mass-texting app, that lets groups better communicate directly with supporters on the ground.

AT&T defended its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, writing in a letter to Sen Al Franken (D-MN) and three other Sens that “this merger is about giving consumers what they want." The letter is written by AT&T Executive Vice President for Federal Relations Tim McKone and Time Warner Senior Vice President of Global Public Policy Steve Vest. They say the merger would allow the combined company to offer cheaper and more robust services to their consumers. “The merger will allow us to offer customers more attractive bundles of broadband and video services, prodding cable companies and other competitors to respond by improving their own services,” it states. “And the merger will further incentivize AT&T and other wireless carriers to deploy lightning-fast 5G wireless technology faster and deeper in their networks.”

The top Sens on the Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel are urging the Department of Justice to scrutinize the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger for the possibility that it leads to anticompetitive practices. The subcommittee's chair, Sen Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointing to aspects of the deal that they find troubling. "The proposed transaction raises complex questions that will require a fact-intensive investigation that has yet to be completed, as well as a deep understanding of the economics of the digital content creation and distribution markets," reads the letter.

[Commentary] New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has taken it on the chin recently, which should be expected considering that many of his views run contrary to the previous chairman's. But much of the criticism is overwrought.

Some aspects of his first few weeks were positive. Increasing transparency in the agency's rule-making processes is long overdue. New ideas on closing the digital divide should be considered, hopefully with an eye toward cost-effectiveness. On the more negative side of the ledger, however, the process by which the chairman took certain actions as well as retracting certain reports were not in keeping with promises to be more inclusive than his predecessor. Hopefully, in the future, Chairman Pai will better engage other commissioners. Doing so would help promote good telecom policy and ensure the success of his long-term agenda.

[Scott Wallsten is president and senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]

Robert Michel, the former House Republican leader who helped push President Reagan’s agenda through Congress, died Feb 17 at 93. Michel first took office in 1957 and spent nearly four decades in the House, before being replaced as the House GOP leader by conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich in 1994. The Illinois congressman was known for his affinity for consensus-building, rather than obstructionism. Through bipartisan cooperation, especially with former Democratic House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Michel helped steer Reagan’s agenda of cuts to taxes and social welfare programs through the House.

The reported use of encrypted messaging apps by government workers is raising questions about whether the services evade scrutiny from their superiors and the public — or are even legal. Trump administration staffers are reportedly communicating via an encrypted messaging app called Confide, the main feature of which is self-destructing messages. Top GOP operatives and aides in the administration have been using the app to communicate out of fear that they might be hacked and have their correspondence made public.

Amid the fallout of national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation, White House staffers are using Confide out of fear that President Trump is planning to crack down on leaks to the media. Government accountability watchdog groups are raising concerns about the use of Confide in the White House, saying it violates the Presidential Records Act. The 39-year-old law requires the president, vice president and their immediate staff members to preserve all correspondence so that official records can be archived. “The reason we have to have an archived record is so there's accountability for the actions and decisions that get made and historically we can review the activities of an administration,” said Sean Moulton, who oversees the open government program at the Project on Government Oversight.

A lawyer for a former host on Fox News said federal prosecutors issued him a subpoena in an ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. Based on the subpoena claim, federal prosecutors may be investigating Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox for "quietly settling sexual harassment claims against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes without reporting it to the media giant’s shareholders." The revelation came during a hearing surrounding former "Outnumbered" and "The Five" co-host Andrea Tantaros’s lawsuit against Fox News executives in New York Supreme Court. The 38-year-old Tantaros claims that her former network had “operated like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult.”

President Trump said his ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn was treated "unfairly" by the "fake media." At a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump blamed Democrats and leaks by the intelligence community for Flynn's resignation over his conversations with Russia. Nov 15’s comments are Trump's first in-person reaction to Flynn's resignation. “I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media — as I call it, the fake media, in many cases,” President Trump said. “I think it’s really a sad thing he was treated so badly.”