Trump’s Pardon of Tim Leiweke Throws Wrench Into DOJ’s Live Nation Antitrust Case

The Department of Justice spent more than a year investigating Tim Leiweke’s involvement in a bid-rigging scheme tied to the construction of a new arena in Austin and was hoping to force Leiweke to testify in the government’s antitrust case, sources tell Billboard. 

Those plans changed last week thanks to a friendly round of golf between President Donald Trump and former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, who Leiweke hired to lobby on his behalf in the criminal case. First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the account has been confirmed to Billboard by a source with knowledge of the discussions. Leiweke, formerly the CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), had been treated unfairly by the DOJ, Gowdy argued, and had been singled out by overzealous government lawyers determined to punish him for his success. Gowdy contends that the alleged victim — in the case the Texas Board of Regents for the state’s public university system — was happy with the deal it struck with Leiweke and did not feel cheated, even after learning that he had worked out a deal with concessionaire Legends Hospitality to not enter a competing bid for the construction project.

In the weeks that followed, Gowdy continued lobbying Trump, pointing out that other executives at OVG had been granted non-prosecution agreements after admitting that the company collected $20 million in upfront payments and $7 million a year to steer the company’s venue contracts to Ticketmaster. Gowdy’s lobbying paid off: On Wednesday (Dec. 3), Trump announced a full, unconditional pardon for Leiweke, wiping away months of investigative work by DOJ attorneys working under Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Slater, a Trump appointee approved by the Senate in March. 

The day after the pardon, Leiweke sat for a previously scheduled deposition with the Department of Justice to discuss its separate antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, according to court records. Leiweke, now a free man thanks to Trump’s executive order, opted not to answer questions from the government during the deposition, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, sources tell Billboard. Now, government officials are weighing whether to ask a judge to force Leiweke to answer some of its questions, prolonging a legal fight over Leiweke’s participation in the Live Nation antitrust case that’s been ongoing for months. 

Leiweke has long been seen as a key player in the Department of Justice’s antitrust probe into Live Nation, with the former OVG CEO identified by the DOJ as a self-described “pimp” and “hammer” for Live Nation. In a lengthy civil complaint filed in 2024 by the DOJ and 41 state attorneys general, Leiweke is alleged to have protected Live Nation’s dominance in the concert promotion business and steered the buildings OVG manages toward signing exclusive ticketing agreements with Ticketmaster, with OVG collecting millions of dollars in fees in the process. 

In July, nearly a year after the Live Nation civil suit, attorneys with the DOJ’s antitrust criminal division unsealed an indictment against Leiweke for allegedly restraining trade in his effort to win the right to build and manage the Moody Center arena for the University of Texas. Leiweke is alleged to have conspired with the former head of Legends Hospitality to rig the bidding for the project and faced a 10-year prison sentence if convicted of the charges.  

That’s now off the table following Trump’s pardon, which was a surprise since Leiweke was not on the list of 15,000 Americans requesting a pardon from the president. In fact, of the more than 1,600 people pardoned by Trump this year, Leiweke was one of just six who had not been convicted at trial or sentenced to prison. And while OVG regularly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on lobbying, neither Leiweke nor OVG were major donors to Trump or either the Republican or Democratic parties, though OVG did make a $250,000 donation to Trump’s inauguration following the 2024 election.  

DOJ lawyers insist that Leiweke’s criminal case is not related to the Live Nation civil case, but the proximity of the deposition and Leiweke’s pardon provide a glimpse into the DOJ antitrust division’s long-running effort to force the executive to talk about OVG’s relationship with the concert giant. 

“There are a couple of categories of relevant information that Mr. Leiweke has as it relates to agreements between Oak View Group and Live Nation,” DOJ antitrust lawyer Alex Cohen argued in a Denver federal courtroom in July, a week after attorneys from the antitrust department’s criminal division announced an indictment against Leiweke.  

Cohen was in court opposing a motion by Leiweke’s attorney to halt the deposition, arguing that Leiweke held critical information about “venue consulting services, agreements not to consult on concert promotions and venues to Ticketmaster pursuant to a 2022 incentive deal” between Live Nation and OVG.  

Leiweke is “a very important fact witness,” Cohen said during the July 17 hearing in front of judge R. Brook Jackson, noting that none of the questions he had for Leiweke “are relevant for the criminal indictment,” but examined how OVG helps Live Nation “maintain its monopolies in concert promotion.” 

During the July hearing, Jackson asked, “If you take his deposition and he asserts the Fifth [Amendment], then you won’t be getting any information with respect to those questions, right?” Cohen responded, “That is correct. Although as we’ve said, we do not believe that his invocation of the Fifth Amendment to all potential questions would necessarily be appropriate,” noting that his office might “seek relief” from the courts if Leiweke didn’t answer those questions. 

The deposition wasn’t the DOJ’s first interview with Leiweke, who was interviewed prior to the filing of the DOJ lawsuit against Live Nation in 2024. Cohen said the DOJ has deposed two other OVG executives who both indicated Leiweke had “unique individual knowledge about certain arrangements and conduct” between the two firms. 

Now that Leiweke has pled the Fifth, Cohen will have to ask a judge to force him to testify if the DOJ wants to take a second shot at deposing him and prove to a judge that the answers it seeks won’t incriminate the former OVG CEO. If a DOJ civil attorney can’t compel a judge to make Leiweke testify, it might have to request that the DOJ’s criminal division grant him criminal immunity to force him to talk.