An explosive report from The New Yorker's Jane Mayer on Monday claimed that President Donald Trump ordered former economic adviser Gary Cohn to push the United States Department of Justice to block a merger involving CNN parent company Time Warner.
George Conway, the husband of Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, said on Monday that Trump should be impeached if it's found that Mayer's reporting is correct.
"If proven, such an attempt to use presidential authority to seek retribution for the exercise of First Amendment rights would unquestionably be grounds for impeachment," Conway wrote on Twitter in response to Mayer's report.
If proven, such an attempt to use presidential authority to seek retribution for the exercise of First Amendment ri… https://t.co/0IqN50peRd— George Conway (@George Conway) 1551702127.0
According to Mayer, Trump hauled Cohn into the Oval Office in the summer of 2017 and read him the riot act for not doing enough to block the proposed deal.
“I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened!” Trump fumed to Cohn. “I’ve mentioned it 50 times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”
The DOJ would subsequently file a lawsuit to block the merger months later, Mayer notes, even though Cohn also apparently disobeyed Trump’s orders to get involved in the deal.
“Don’t you f*cking dare call the Justice Department,” Cohn said, according to Mayer’s reporting. “We are not going to do business that way.”
A former White House official confirms to Mayer that Trump ranted regularly about DOJ inaction over the AT&T-Time Warner merger.
