AT&T-Time Warner ‘reckless’

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page argued in court papers on Tuesday that AT&T should not be permitted to buy CNN parent Time Warner because there was a risk it would lead to “recklessness” in journalism.

Page, whose contacts with Russia have been under scrutiny by Congress and a special counsel, made his argument in a friend-of-the-court brief that has yet to be accepted.

Trump criticized the deal on the campaign trail last year and has repeatedly attacked the reporting of Time Warner’s CNN news network.

Page said in an interview with Reuters that he had not been in contact with the White House about the filing.

The Justice Department sued AT&T in No- vember to block its $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner, saying the deal could raise prices for rivals and pay-TV subscribers while hampering the development of online video. A trial is set for March 19. Both AT&T and the Justice Department declined to comment.

“This market power concentrated in the hands of a few dominant mega corporate telecommunications-media conglomerates encourages extreme levels of journalistic recklessness and impropriety since it allocates considerable resources to the media outlets under their control,” Page said in the court papers.

Page described himself as a “junior, unpaid, informal adviser” to Trump’s campaign.