‘HALF-BAKED’

Justice Department to File Antitrust Case Against Google Despite Prosecutors’ Objections

Several lawyers have left the case over what they see as an arbitrary deadline.

The Justice Department plans to file an antitrust suit against Google as soon as this month, The New York Times reports. Several of the lawyers investigating Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, for potential antitrust violations objected to the DOJ’s deadline to finalize their work by the end of September. Some reportedly left the case over their qualms earlier this summer, and others have refused to sign the complaint, arguing the deadline was arbitrary. Some worried that Attorney General William Barr was rushing the suit with, according to one lawyer, “half-baked” justifications to boost President Donald Trump’s administration in advance of the election. The DOJ opened the inquiry in June 2019, and lawyers in offices of state attorneys general and the DOJ have argued over whether it should focus on either the company’s dominance of online search, of internet advertising, or of both.