WASHINGTON -- According to reports Saturday, AT&T is preparing to offer to divest as much as 40 percent of T-Mobile in an effort to win approval for the merger from the Department of Justice. The reports follow AT&T's announcement last Wednesday that it filed a motion with the Federal Communications Commission to withdraw its merger application.

Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood made the following statement:

"AT&T's unwillingness to face the judgment of the FCC is stunning. Only now does the company seem to have realized what everyone else already knows: that mounting a merger campaign on nothing but lobbying dollars and deception couldn't cover up the fact that this merger is a job killer.

"AT&T is desperately trying to salvage its deal with talk of divestitures, but it's time for it to stop glossing over the harm this deal would cause to jobs, competition and prices, and to pull the plug on this merger once and for all."