The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said it is investigating a group of television networks over whether they breached federal competition law when they suspended shared coverage of President Donald Trump.
Five networks paused their presidential coverage for several days last month, after the Trump administration withdrew the credentials of reporters working for CNN, MS Now and Politico.
The department has asked ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News to hand over communications relating to the pool, and said the boycott could fall foul of the Sherman Act, a law that bars companies from engaging in monopolistic business practices.
Under the pool arrangement, members normally share their material with the wider media.
A DoJ spokesperson said: “The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organisations have violated the antitrust laws.”
Trump blocked CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House last month after accusing the organisations of writing “fiction or lies” about his team.
The three outlets had sued the Trump administration, arguing that the restricted access violated their First Amendment rights. The White House later reinstated their access after a ruling from a judge.
The First Amendment forbids the government from “abridging” the freedom of the press, language that courts have traditionally interpreted as preventing the government from discriminating against the media based on the content of their coverage.
The Trump administration has taken a number of legal actions against news publications in the US, including lawsuits over coverage of the president.
In February, the White House announced it was taking control of the press pool which has access to Trump and had for more than a century been managed by the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The same month, the Trump administration moved to bar Associated Press (AP) reporters and photographers from spaces where access is limited, such as the Oval Office or Air Force One, because of the outlet’s usage of the term “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America”. AP filed a lawsuit and the case remains ongoing.
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