Whether it was or not, the case always felt political.

The Justice Department’s attempt to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner never made sense on the merits of the case. On Tuesday, Judge Richard J. Leon of United States District Court in Washington said aloud what most antitrust experts had been thinking for months: The government’s case was a losing one.

He repeatedly used the phrase “the government fails” in his 172-page decision. His ruling was peppered with exclamation marks.

Judge Leon ruled forcefully, approving the deal with nary a concession by AT&T and Time Warner and admonishing the government that it shouldn’t seek an emergency stay. Now, the yearlong effort to block the agreement will almost certainly be seen through a political prism of speculation about what motivated it, given President Trump’s well-established distaste for the merger.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the AT&T and Time Warner deal is the role reversal of those who rooted for it and those who fought it.