As T-Mobile pushed for government approval for its merger with Sprint, company executives repeatedly stayed at a Trump hotel, according to a new report from The Washington Post. The stays raise questions about whether companies like T-Mobile are attempting to gain favor with the Trump administration through the president’s private business interests.
According to the Post, one day after announcing its proposed merger with Sprint, nine T-Mobile executives, including CEO John Legere, checked in to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. The Post reported that documents showed 38 nights of stays by company executives over about a dozen days last year, a figure that could be incomplete.
38 stays in a dozen days
Legere was seen in the lobby of the hotel, which is near the White House, as recently as last week. He told the Post that he was staying for meetings with the Justice Department, which is tasked with deciding whether to approve the merger.
T-Mobile has spent years attempting to merge with other carriers, but it had no success under the Obama administration. The company’s announcement last year that it would try again to merge with Sprint, this time under the Trump administration, was met with criticism in some corners, as some argued it would further consolidate a market that’s already dominated by four companies. If approved, the deal, which also requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, would create a new behemoth in the industry.
T-Mobile and the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Legere has sparred with Trump in the past. In 2015, after Trump tweeted that “T-Mobile service is terrible,” Legere apparently checked out of a Trump hotel, saying in a now-deleted tweet he was “so happy to wake up in a hotel where every single item isn’t labeled ‘Trump’ and all the books and TV is about him.”