Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Words of advice AT&T (News - Alert) might have considered before lashing out at the U.S. government this week.

AT&T Inc. did not mince words in its response to the Federal Communications Commission calling its report about its potential T-Mobile (News - Alert) merger “unfair” and “biased,” according to The Associated Press.

AT&T announced last spring it agreed to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, but the deal is facing a great deal of opposition from the U.S. government.

Following an internal report issued last week, FCC (News - Alert) Chairman Julius Genachowski notified AT&T Inc.’s chief executive to advise that the federal agency plans to block the company’s $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA.

The Justice Department has already sued to block the transaction as anticompetitive, with a U.S. district court trial set to commence in February.

According to Bloomberg (News - Alert), “Genachowski told AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson that he would ask fellow commissioners to send the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc. to a hearing before an agency judge, Dallas-based AT&T said in a Nov. 25 filing that it circulated by e-mail,” during the Nov. 22 phone call.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) withdrew their FCC merger applications just before the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 23, according to FCC filings.

At this point, given the legal obstacles and government opposition, there is a slim chance the merger will ever go through.

This week, the FCC took the unlikely step of releasing its analysis of the merger, finding “questions of fact” about AT&T’s stated justifications for the merger and dismissed most of AT&T’s arguments, The AP said.

After the FCC released its report earlier this week, AT&T then countered with its own criticisms, saying the FCC draft was not voted on by the five-member commission, a legal step necessary for releasing the report.

According to the AP, “AT&T released a more thorough, combative response to the report,” pointing out how unusual such a step is considering AT&T “spends heavily on lobbying and cultivates close relationships with regulators.”

In its statement, the Dallas-based phone company said, “The document is so obviously one-sided that any fair-minded person reading it is left with the clear impression that it is an advocacy piece, and not a considered analysis,” according to the AP.