The US Department of Justice antitrust division can be led by Gail Slater following a profitable Congressional affirmation vote right this moment. Slater will take over a number of antitrust circumstances in opposition to giant tech companies, filed underneath each Donald Trump and Joe Biden — together with a high-profile Google search monopoly swimsuit.
The Senate voted to substantiate Slater with bipartisan help as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. She’ll be becoming a member of Trump’s administration for the second time — she labored for the National Economic Council throughout his first time period and was an financial coverage advisor and Senate employees member for Vice President JD Vance earlier than the election. She has a protracted historical past in antitrust regulation, becoming a member of the Federal Trade Commission to work on merger circumstances beginning in 2004 and later lobbying for anti-monopoly laws whereas working for Roku. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) urged colleagues to substantiate Slater by noting her “a number of years” of personal antitrust regulation observe and a decade-long stint on the FTC.
Slater will be a part of the administration in the course of US v. Google, an antitrust case that noticed Google declared an illegal monopolist final yr. A listening to scheduled subsequent month will determine what cures to implement in opposition to it, together with a possible breakup of the corporate. She can be changing Jonathan Kanter, underneath whom the DOJ gained its case in opposition to Google.
The new antitrust watchdog hasn’t firmly articulated when and the place the DOJ will struggle its new battles. When Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, who leads the antitrust subcommittee, requested about her dedication to see by antitrust enforcement began underneath Trump, she mentioned, “assets are after all an important consideration” in taking circumstances additional, including that antitrust civil litigation is “pricey in order that can be a consideration.”
Other elements of the Trump administration have used their energy to go after political enemies, and Trump’s long-standing antagonism with corporations like Google has raised issues of politically motivated litigation. Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has mentioned she had heard good issues about Slater, requested through the affirmation listening to whether or not she would “open an investigation or file a lawsuit for any cause aside from official regulation enforcement functions.” Slater responded that she doesn’t “anticipate a truth sample such as you described.”
