Two Los Angeles trial lawyers say the Justice Department’s antitrust probe of the nation’s biggest TV networks has a flaw so basic it borders on absurd: one of its targets is being investigated for boycotting a White House it had been banned from.
The department said earlier this month that it is investigating ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News over whether they broke antitrust law when the five networks that make up the White House TV pool halted pool coverage in protest. The pause came after President Donald Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House in September.
On Legal AF’s “Civil Action” show, Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian, plaintiffs’ attorneys at Kabateck LLP, picked the case apart.
“He’s investigating CNN for being engaged in this anti-competitive behavior. They were barred by him,” Kabateck said.
The lawyers pointed to a second problem as well. Antitrust cases, they said, hinge on competitors colluding for financial gain, and the networks had nothing to gain by going dark. Karnikian noted they likely lost viewers, since coverage of the president draws big audiences. Kabateck argued the move was a coordinated protest, which he said the First Amendment protects.
“It ends in a big fat nothing and another Trump loss,” Karnikian predicted.
The hosts suggested winning may not be the ultimate goal, instead arguing the administration is after a chilling effect and whatever concessions it can extract.
The networks first learned of the probe when their lawyers received government demands seeking records on how the pool was set up and how it has operated lately, CNN reported. Bruce Brown of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called the probe an apparent pretext for obtaining records about how the networks cover the White House.
The investigation is the latest escalation in Trump’s war with the press. He has demanded The New York Times be “arrested” over its crowd reporting, and his White House has gone after CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for airing footage of empty seats at a rally.
A federal judge has temporarily restored the banned outlets’ credentials, and pool coverage has resumed. The probe notably covers Fox News, a network Trump has long favored.
