The Justice Department is investigating whether ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News violated federal antitrust law when they briefly halted pool coverage of President Donald Trump last month. The New York Times reported late Saturday that department officials contacted the networks on Friday and demanded communications and materials related to the White House TV pool.
Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington confirmed the investigation in a statement Saturday, saying that “group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act.”
What Triggered the Probe
The five networks rotate responsibility for capturing and distributing footage of the president. They paused pool coverage last month after the Trump administration dropped CNN from its scheduled pool assignment, Common Dreams reported. CNN, MS NOW and Politico then sued over the White House ban of their reporters, and U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered their access restored on September 24, the Associated Press reported.
Reaction From Press Groups
Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the investigation “appears to be a pretext for seeking records from the networks about how they are covering daily White House events during a media ban the president himself put in place.” He called it “another and even more brazen attempt to try to intimidate journalists.”
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called the investigation “nonsense,” adding that news outlets standing up for their constitutional rights “has nothing to do with antitrust law.” Stern also pointed to activist Laura Loomer’s public call for an antitrust lawsuit against the networks.
Jonathan Kanter, who led the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division under the Biden administration, told CNN the networks’ actions are “not even in the same zip code of an antitrust violation.” He said reporters coming together to form the pool in the first place was no more an antitrust violation.
Where the Dispute Stands
CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued over the ban, claiming a First Amendment violation, and the Justice Department told a federal court that press access is a privilege, not a right. Kelly extended his temporary order through Tuesday, October 13, and said he would rule by then on a longer-term injunction, TheWrap reported. More on the standoff is in our earlier report on CNN’s removal from the pool.
