Trump admin forces AT&T to sell Turner networks or DirecTV

[ColDayNews 438]

From thestreet.com: "What was once mere speculation has apparently become reality.

 

 

President Trump's Department of Justice has told AT&T Inc. (T - Get Report) that if it wants to win regulator approval for its $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. (TWX - Get Report) it has to sell CNN. Never mind that the demand smacks of political motivation, the DOJ's anti-trust division has apparently delivered the demand to AT&T, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, Nov. 8.

 

 

CNBC confirmed the FT report, adding that the DOJ has told AT&T it must sell Turner Networks, which includes CNN, or unload DirecTV.

 

 

The surprising development sent Time Warner shares tumbling 6.4% on Wednesday to $88.56, sparking recollections from a year ago when Trump, as the Republican presidential nominee, said he would block the deal on grounds that no company should be allowed to get so big.

 

 

CNN declined to comment on the report. AT&T and the Department of Justice couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

 

 

And while AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has argued for a year that the proposed $85.4 billion deal qualified as a "vertical merger, Trump's newly appointed head of the DOJ's antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, said as much a year.

 

 

Stephenson has said in recent months that the company would be willing to go to court to stop regulators from blocking the deal. But whether AT&T would go to court to prevent the DOJ from forcing it to sell CNN, or more significantly, whether the Trump DOJ has grounds to demand such as sale remains unclear.

 

 

"We would have to ask what's the theory to this Republican Department of Justice to block this type of deal," Blair Levin, a former chief of staff at the Federal Communications Commission told CNBC. "In effect, this would take us back to a time when Republican departments of justice thought big is bad. For all kinds of investment bankers, that has precedential problems for a lot of other stuff we've been thinking about."

[oklahomanewsman 210]

I think AT&T should probe into whether or not there's been any interference between the White House and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division regarding a potential "forced divistiture" of the Turner Networks just simply because of Trump's rough relationship (if you can even call that) of CNN (and they plan to do that).