Fifteen Democratic lawmakers called on President Barack Obama to direct the Justice Department to settle its antitrust lawsuit seeking to block AT&T Inc.’s $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA.

“We urge the Administration to resolve expeditiously your concerns and approve the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile USA,” the lawmakers, led by Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama. “The current merger proposal embraces the three job creation strategies you have already highlighted.”

The idea that a sitting president should tell the Justice Department to settle an antitrust case against a merger is bound to raise eyebrows in the antitrust bar. When President Richard Nixon ordered the Justice Department to drop its challenge to an ITT deal in 1971, the move became one of the earliest scandals of his presidency. “My order is to drop the God damn thing – is that clear?” he told Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, according to a transcript of his White House tapes.

Mr. Nixon’s order allegedly came after ITT agreed to secretly donate $400,000 to his campaign. Partly a result of the scandal, the Justice Department is now required by the Tunney Act to secure the approval of a federal judge for any antitrust settlement and demonstrate that it’s in the public interest…