Republican AG Slams Democrats Who Would Shun DOJ’s Google Suit

(Bloomberg) -- Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry accused Democrats who won’t join the Justice Department’s pending antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc.’s Google of being hypocritical and playing politics.

The case is expected to draw support from approximately a dozen state attorneys general when it’s filed in the coming weeks, Bloomberg has reported, but they’re likely to be mostly Republicans. Some Democrats have worried about the focus of the case on Google’s search business and may take more time to prepare a broader complaint that could include allegations about the company’s control of the digital advertising market, Bloomberg has reported.

“Any Democratic attorney general unfortunately who wouldn’t take action in this case I think is being hypocritical,” said Landry, a Republican who is helping to lead a multistate investigation into the search giant. “It would be disappointing for those that don’t because it would then be pure politics,” Landry said in an interview on Friday.

Landry said he hoped litigation was “imminent” and that he would join the case if it is filed. He declined to confirm any details about the Justice Department’s case.

“I could go out on a limb and say that I’m not going to be the only one to join,” Landry said. “I can’t fathom an excuse why a state would not want to join.”

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has spearheaded the department’s 14-month investigation into competition in the technology industry, which is likely to yield the biggest antitrust case in a generation. He has also led the Trump administration’s assault on technology companies for what Republicans claim is a pattern of silencing conservative viewpoints.

Democrats have slammed Barr’s moves on alleged bias as attempts to cut off critics, but in Landry’s view, Democrats who sit out the Justice Department’s antitrust case are the ones being political. Liberal groups have been “clamoring for people to take action against these giants of the internet,” he said.

“Can you find me an instance under which a Democrat is happy with anything this administration does?” he added.

Landry acknowledged that a Google case would be “a huge and complex matter.” The Justice Department is focused on whether Google skews search results to favor its own products and whether it uses an iron fist over access to users to shut out rivals, Bloomberg has reported. Federal enforcers also dug into the company’s position in the buying and selling of online ads, but could leave that issue to a second case led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Landry also said that antitrust enforcers should have taken a harder look at acquisitions by the technology giants. He cited as an example the acquisitions of the Instagram photo app and the WhatsApp chat platform by Facebook Inc., which is under scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

“I do believe that the government to some extent fell asleep at the switch in really diving in to determine whether or not some of these acquisitions or mergers were, in the long run, going to be productive,” he said.

Landry addressed Barr’s efforts on alleged anti-conservative bias by big tech, which included a meeting in Washington with President Donald Trump on Wednesday. The companies deny they are are trying to tip the scales toward Democrats, but Landry said the White House meeting discussed whether the companies had engaged in business deception on the issue.

“You might see more cases taken in individual states,” he said.

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