The shocking racial bias lawsuit roiling AT&T may come into play as the Feds look over the phone giant’s deal to acquire DirecTV.

AT&T is being sued by a former executive assistant who claims she was subjected to racially offensive images while working on transferring data between her boss’ phones. When she reached out to HR and higher-ups to complain about that and other issues, she was ignored, according to the suit.

The boss was Aaron Slater, president of content and ad sales, who was recently disconnected from Ma Bell.

Aaron Slator has been terminated. There is no place for demeaning behavior within AT&T and we regret the action was not taken earlier, an AT&T spokesperson told On The Money.

One of our tipsters says the timing is a huge embarrassment as the two firms head towards the end of their review period, noting: “AT&T has huge federal contracts, and they do huge business with public institutions.”