AT&T officially completed its merger with Time Warner on June 14, 2018, finalizing the $85 billion deal just two days after a federal judge approved it, according to a press release.

"We're going to bring a fresh approach to how the media and entertainment industry works for consumers, content creators, distributors and advertisers," said AT&T CEO and chairman Randall Stephenson in a statement announcing the merger's completion.

The move came shortly after the Justice Department said it would not seek an injunction to stop the deal. On June 12, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon rejected the DOJ's assertion that the merger would substantially reduce competition. AT&T and Time Warner had until the agreement's expiration on June 21, 2018, to complete the merger.

An injunction could have delayed the merger beyond this deadline, effectively terminating it. Although the DOJ decided not to seek a stay of the court's decision, it has 60 days from the date of the ruling to file an appeal. The merger's completion did not eliminate this option.

Reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times said the DOJ is still evaluating whether to issue an appeal.

For our last update, we spoke with Eleanor Fox, professor of trade regulation at the New York University School of Law and an expert in antitrust law, who told us there was "virtually no chance of the DOJ winning an appeal" because the decision was made on the basis of irreversible facts.

"The role of fact-finding is for the judge of the trial court, and this was the trial court's decision," Fox said. "Unless there was a serious error made in the fact-finding, the appellate court cannot overturn the finding."

The merger's completion marks a setback for President Donald Trump, who promised to block the deal during a campaign speech on Oct. 22, 2016. "As an example of the power structure I'm fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few," Trump said.

We will update this promise if the DOJ pursues an appeal before the end of the 60-day window, or if the circumstances surrounding the merger dramatically change. For now, the merger is complete, so we rate this Promise Broken.