'Should Set Off Every Alarm Bell': Trump DOJ Cleared Merger After Company Donated to Melania Trump Initiative

The American Economic Liberties Project on Monday called on the US Congress and state attorneys general to investigate the US Department of Justice's decision last week to abruptly end its probe into the proposed merger between Fox Corporation and TV streaming company Roku.

In a Friday announcement, the DOJ said that its investigation found it was "unlikely" that a Fox-Roku merger would pose "a substantial risk of harm to competition" in the TV streaming market.

The DOJ also said it was satisfied with Fox's pledge to keep Roku "an open and neutral content partner," noting that the media giant "would suffer monetary and reputational harm if it attempted to use the Roku platform to harm Fox's content rivals."

Although earlier reporting claimed that the DOJ would approve the Fox-Roku merger under a consent decree, the department instead signed off on it "with a simple affirmative press statement outlining commitments from Fox, several of which expire in just three years, and leaving the conditions without any judicial enforcement mechanism attached," explained the American Economic Liberties Project.

Additionally, the group pointed out that the DOJ's decision to end its merger investigation came just weeks after Fox made a $1 million contribution to First Lady Melania Trump's "Fostering the Future" initiative, a scholarship program aimed at helping foster children attend college.

“It should set off every alarm bell that the Fox Corporation is giving any money to the first lady’s foster care initiative during the Justice Department’s review of its Roku deal,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. "This is part of a documented pattern, where big media corporations curry favor with the administration, via donations and promises of favorable coverage, and then deals get done."

Hepner added that the DOJ's decision to sign off on the deal was part of a broader pattern of corporate consolidation and corruption under the second Trump administration.

“The next Congress has a responsibility to take these sorts of transactions seriously," he said, "and root out the blatant corruption that has allowed America to turn into an oligarchy, where power keeps getting consolidated at a remarkable rate."