To: Justice Department
DOJ: Stop cozing up to Comcast executives!
Newly unearthed emails via MuckRock show a cozy relationship between top Comcast executives and Justice Department antitrust officials.
Just days before Comcast announced plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, a Senior VP at the media empire had invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse to attend the Sochi Olympics. They set up a dinner date — then started trading "heads up" about company announcements for introductions within the Justice Department.
That's pretty damn chummy for someone who's supposed to be investigating your company for possible wrongdoing.
Will you join us in calling on the Justice Department to stop cultivating relationships between antitrust officials and corporate higher-ups, and not to have dinner partners investigating their friends?
Just days before Comcast announced plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, a Senior VP at the media empire had invited Deputy Assistant Attorney General Renata Hesse to attend the Sochi Olympics. They set up a dinner date — then started trading "heads up" about company announcements for introductions within the Justice Department.
That's pretty damn chummy for someone who's supposed to be investigating your company for possible wrongdoing.
Will you join us in calling on the Justice Department to stop cultivating relationships between antitrust officials and corporate higher-ups, and not to have dinner partners investigating their friends?
Why is this important?
Regulators and executives are going to have friendships with each other. But when a corporation like Comcast is about to make a multi-billion merger, it's hard to view antitrust officials' cozy emails to high-up execs as impartial.