BEHIND A PORTRAIT
Transcripts add curious sidelight to AT&T trial
During an April 4 break in the government’s hotly contested antitrust trial seeking to block AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner, the telecom’s lead lawyer had an interesting question for Judge Richard Leon.
Would it be OK for a lawyer pal to kick in some money anonymously to help pay for the painting of the jurist currently underway?
“One of our lawyers on our team was asked to make an anonymous contribution to a fund for the unveiling of your portrait,” the lawyer, Dan Petrocelli, said, according to transcripts of the trial unsealed Monday.
“I have no involvement in the collection process for the portrait as is the standard practice of all judges,” the judge replied, the transcripts show. “I was asked to provide my committee with names of people who are friends and I have had cases with over the years.”
“I just didn’t want it to be any issue here,” Petrocelli shot back during the sidebar conference, telling the judge he had cleared the subject with a DOJ lawyer. “The other question is, are any of the lawyers invited to attend? I understand it’s in the ceremonial courtroom.”
The judge said the May 11 event was open to the public and anybody could attend.
The friendly give-and-take between the judge and AT&T’s lead lawyer — plus some in-trial rulings — raise questions about whether Judge Leon was setting double standards during the much-watched trial, according to a source close to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department on Monday filed a 73-page appeal that claimed Leon turned a blind eye toward “fundamental principles of economics and common sense” when he ruled, after a six-week trial, that AT&T could complete its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The judge ruled that allowing the companies to merge would not lead to higher prices.
In another alleged case of preferential treatment of AT&T by the judge, according to the DOJ source, Leon allowed AT&T to crossexamine Sling TV Group President Warren Schlichting using an article in which Schlichting’s boss, Charlie Ergen, commented about the nature of negotiations with cable companies, according to the transcripts.
The questioning came over the government’s objections.
The article in question was not admitted as evidence.
When the Justice Department tried a similar strategy, one source said — the crossexamination of AT&T’s economics expert, Dennis Carlton, using a document he had referred to in his presentation — AT&T objected.
The judge upheld AT&T’s move.
DOJ lead lawyer Craig Conrath said privately, “So we’ve had cross-examination about things Charlie Ergen said somewhere outside this court. And it’s been allowed.”
The Justice Department also tried to cross-examine Turner Networks CEO John Martin by playing a 2016 interview of Martin on CNBC.
Leon didn’t allow it, telling a DOJ lawyer: “Don’t pull that kind of crap again in this courtroom. Do you understand me?”
In its appeal, the Justice Department claims, “The court made the vast majority of its evidentiary rulings during sealed bench conferences and declined to release the transcripts of these conferences to anyone during the trial.”
AT&T on June 14 closed the Time Warner merger, but agreed to operate it as a separate entity until the appeal is decided.