Latest (Saturday night, October 10): Justice Department officials contacted the networks on Friday, demanding communications and materials related to the White House TV pool, the Times reported, moving the inquiry from a reported investigation to active document demands. The trigger, per the Times: last month the networks collectively suspended their pool footage of Trump for several days after the president barred CNN journalists from the White House grounds, preventing CNN from participating in the pool. No named DOJ official was visible in the portion read. (Partial direct read of the NYT piece; the remainder sits behind its login gate.)
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News over pool coverage of President Trump, the New York Times reported Saturday, citing six people with knowledge of the department’s action. A department spokesperson told the Times that “members of the television press pool have proudly boycotted covering White House events” and that “group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act,” adding that the Antitrust Division is investigating whether the news organizations violated antitrust laws. The networks had briefly stopped providing pool coverage after Trump banned CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House, then reinstated it. Neither the department nor the networks immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.