The Wall Street Journal’s reconstruction of the Justice Department’s Live Nation settlement answers several questions about the government’s abrupt departure from the antitrust trial. It also raises new ones about White House intervention, conflicts of interest and the future independence of federal corporate enforcement.

Here are eight broader conclusions from the Journal’s reporting.

Live Nation spent months trying to obtain acceptable settlement terms from the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Those negotiations produced proposals the company considered untenable, including open-sourcing Ticketmaster’s software and relinquishing control of most of its amphitheaters.

The company’s fortunes changed after the negotiations moved out of the Antitrust Division and into the White House.

That distinction is critical. Live Nation did not persuade the DOJ trial team that the government’s case was weak. Nor did it initially persuade antitrust officials that modest behavioral restrictions were sufficient. Instead, it assembled politically connected advisers and took its argument to officials with the authority to overrule the lawyers handling the case.

The decisive negotiations occurred in the Roosevelt Room with the attorney general and White House counsel—not inside the Justice Department with the antitrust specialists who developed the case.

That may have been legally permissible. The president oversees the executive branch, and political appointees have the authority to determine enforcement priorities. But the process sends an unmistakable message to other companies facing government action: If agency lawyers will not offer acceptable terms, access to the president may provide another path.