Column: Bill Barr has more ways to politicize the Department of Justice (via latimesopinion)
In the friendly confines of a Fox News interview on Sunday, Atty. Gen. William Barr laid out his chief concerns and enforcement priorities heading into the election., Barr has allowed improper considerations — most offensively, the president’s political interests — to drive enforcement considerations. The bill of particulars against him includes misrepresenting the Mueller report, seeking a lesser sentence for Roger Stone, trying to dismiss the proved case against Michael Flynn and firing U.S.
Picking up on Trump’s bitter but unsubstantiated criticism of Facebook, Twitter and other internet companies, Barr is determined to rattle the DOJ’s antitrust saber at Silicon Valley, and first up is the advertising and search giant Google. According to various news reports, the department is already drafting an antitrust complaint against Google and interviewing lawyers to prosecute the case.
Yet it’s unclear what theory the department would pursue. The Federal Trade Commission, which also has antitrust jurisdiction, looked closely at possible antitrust charges against Google in 2013 and concluded there was no basis to bring a case.That’s not to say that a company the size of Google could not correctly be the subject of an antitrust case.
But the Fox interview provided a strong clue explaining the attorney general’s fixation on Silicon Valley. Powerful internet companies, said Barr, are “only presenting one viewpoint, and they can push the public in a particular direction very quickly.” Removing any doubt about which direction he had in mind, Barr endorsed an assertion made by Rep. Devin Nunes : “Conservatives are being censored.
“One way that this can be addressed,” Barr went on, “is through the antitrust laws and challenging companies that engage in monopolistic practices.” In other words, the department’s antitrust prosecutorial powers can bring Google, et al., to heel.
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