AT&T and the Department of Justice are fighting in court over whether President Trump's hatred of CNN played a role in the DOJ's attempt to block AT&T's purchase of Time Warner Inc.

In a pre-trial court hearing on Friday, AT&T demanded "that the Justice Department hand over additional evidence to prove that President Trump did not wield political influence over the agency as its antitrust enforcers reviewed the company's bid to acquire Time Warner," The Washington Post reported.

AT&T wants the DOJ to provide logs of any conversations about the merger between the White House and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The DOJ should also have to "disclose any conversations between Sessions and the agency's antitrust division," the Post wrote.

But DOJ lawyers argue that AT&T is just on a "fishing expedition."

"There was no selective enforcement,"Justice Department lawyer Craig Conrath said at the hearing, according to Reuters. "The president is unhappy with CNN. We don't dispute that. But AT&T wants to turn that into a get-out-jail-free card for their illegal merger."

The DOJ hopes to prevent the issue from coming up in trial, as it asked the judge "not to allow AT&T's defense of its proposed acquisition of Time Warner to include a claim that the Trump administration improperly challenged the deal for political reasons," according to The Wall Street Journal.

Trump vowed to block merger during campaign

AT&T is defending itself against a lawsuit the DOJ filed to block the company's proposed acquisition of Time Warner. A trial is scheduled to begin March 19 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Judge Richard Leon is expected to rule tomorrow on AT&T's request for documents.

Conrath said that the DOJ had no political motivations in suing to block the merger, calling AT&T's claims "an unnecessary distraction, a sideshow," according to the Journal.

When he was campaigning for president, Trump said that his administration would not approve the AT&T/Time Warner merger "because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few."

DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said in an affidavit Friday that he received no "orders, instructions, or directions" related to the merger. AT&T wants Delrahim to testify at the trial.

Before being appointed by Trump to lead the DOJ's antitrust division, Delrahim said the AT&T/Time Warner deal does not pose a "major antitrust problem." After reviewing the merger in more detail as the antitrust chief, Delrahim concluded that AT&T acquiring Time Warner and its stable of popular TV programming would give the company too much control over programming and distribution.

"This merger would greatly harm American consumers," Delrahim said when the DOJ filed its lawsuit. "It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy."

Before the suit was filed, the DOJ reportedly told AT&T that it could complete the merger either by selling DirecTV or by having Time Warner sell CNN. AT&T wants to keep all of those assets under one roof.