Lawyers investigating anti-competitive practices by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, have said the tight case they’re hoping to build against the massively powerful tech giant requires time and deliberation. But, the New York Times reported Thursday, Attorney General William Barr is hurrying them to wrap up the case sooner, seeking to bring antitrust charges against the tech giant in a matter of weeks. Sources familiar with the matter told the paper that Barr had imposed a September 30 deadline for the dozens of career attorneys working the case to finish their inquiry, a timeline reportedly opposed by most of the team.
According to a Justice Department official who spoke to the Times, Barr is setting the deadline because he feels “the department had moved too slowly” in building its case against Alphabet. But, in the view of the career attorneys investigating the company, the September 30 date seems “arbitrary” or politically motivated, and could jeopardize the high-profile case against one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful tech corporations. Barr is pushing DOJ lawyers to draw up “half-baked” cases for a complaint this fall, some on the team have reportedly told associates.
The closely-watched Google inquiry could become one of the biggest antitrust cases in recent memory. Amid widespread scrutiny of big tech, which has featured calls from Elizabeth Warren and others to break up large tech companies, the DOJ last year opened two probes into Alphabet. The first, launched in June 2019, appears focused on its search business. The second, opened the following month, was a broader inquiry into Google and other tech firms’ monopolistic behavior. As the Times reported, many lawyers had been eager to work on the cases, but have, at times, become frustrated as politics, both internal and external, weighs down the probes. Among the teams, there are reportedly disagreements about tactics, including the deadline Barr has set for them to conclude their work. Then there’s the outside noise around the cases: Donald Trump and other allies have blasted Google, alleging anti-conservative bias by the company and other tech giants like Facebook and Twitter. “The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google,” the president tweeted in May. “The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation.” Such sweeping claims aren’t backed up by evidence—Facebook, for one, is a platform dominated by conservative views. Still, Barr has endorsed his boss’s conspiratorial thinking. “There’s something very disturbing about what’s going on,” he said in July.
According to the Times, such political accusations could feature in Google’s eventual defense in whatever case Barr may bring. In addition to the president’s partisan interest in the investigation, lawyers involved worry the rushed timeline could undermine what they believe could be a strong case against the company. To fell a giant like Alphabet, of course, the DOJ’s shot has to be powerful and precise. Bringing a case prematurely, the lawyers told the Times, could result in a weaker complaint that’s easier for the company to bat away.
Why is Barr once again breaking with career lawyers in DOJ matters? It could be arbitrary, as some speculated to the Times. It could also be that he’s trying to rack up some political points for the president, padding Trump’s resume with a major crackdown on big tech in the final weeks before the election. Such a case, whether it’s ultimately successful or not, could allow the president to take credit—especially among his supporters, whom he’s conditioned to regard Google and its ilk as anti-conservative gatekeepers. “One way this can be addressed,” Barr said this summer of the alleged bias against conservatives, “is through the antitrust laws and challenging companies that engage in monopolistic practices.”
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