The top lawyer who led search giant Google in its landmark court battle with the US government is also a key adviser to Sen. Kamala Harris' campaign, in a cozy relationship that the tech industry's antitrust watchdog has called “outrageous,” The Washington Post has learned.
In a high-profile doubleheader in Washington, Google lawyer Karen Dunn gave opening statements in Virginia federal court last Tuesday in a Biden-Harris Justice Department lawsuit targeting the company's digital advertising business. And He reportedly rushed out of the courtroom. He will support Harris in her final preparations to face Trump in Philadelphia that afternoon.
“If he was writing a TV movie, he couldn't have written a better script,” said Jeff Houser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project.
Dunn's influence within the Democratic Party is reaching a peak after Ms Harris won rave reviews for her performance in the debate with Mr Trump, which could bode well for Google, which has already been found guilty of illegally monopolizing online search in a separate federal court case.
“I would imagine after the debate that Harris's standing in the world has only grown, and if she were to negotiate a settlement with the Department of Justice under her leadership, that would be a concern,” Hauser said.
Dunn, a top litigator at the blue-chip law firm Paul, Weiss, whose chairman, Brad Karp, heads the Lawyers Committee for Kamala Harris, which is raising money for her White House bid, is tasked with defending Google in a Justice Department lawsuit that is seen as an existential threat to the company's business model.
Dunn's moves have attracted the attention of antitrust experts, who worry, as The Washington Post has reported, that tech-friendly advisers to Dunn and Harris will push behind the scenes for a “soft settlement” rather than breaking up Google's dominant monopoly.
Dunn is a highly respected lawyer with a long history of representing big tech clients including Apple and Uber in major lawsuits, but some experts still see Google's selection of him as its opening speaker as an apparent power play to demonstrate its ties to the White House.
“It must be demoralizing for the team of DOJ lawyers working around the clock to get their ad tech cases against Google ready for trial on the Rocket Litigation timeline to see the administration meeting with opposing counsel to solicit advice,” said Brendan Benedict, an antitrust lawyer at Benedict Law Firm who has faced off against the tech giant in court.
This close relationship “makes Dan a likely candidate to succeed him.” [antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter] “Once Ms Harris is in the Justice Department, Dunn will become Attorney General,” Benedict added. Dunn was reportedly under consideration for the position at the start of President Biden's term.
Reached for comment, a representative for Paul, Weiss pointed to recent statements by legal experts who disputed the conflict of interest claims.
For example, Steven Lubet, professor emeritus of legal ethics at Northwestern University Law School, told The New York Times that “there is no conflict between directing debate preparation and representing clients in litigation against the government.”
Google declined to comment. The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The furor over Dunn's role in the Harris campaign is just the latest development in the ethical quagmire in the Google ad tech case linked to Paul Weiss' involvement.
Aiden Buzzetti, president of the conservative group Bull Moose Project, called the New York law firm's tactics against Cantor a “huge ethical red flag.”
“I'm astonished that the Harris campaign is even trying to answer these questions themselves,” Buzzetti said. “She is literally being told what to say by Google's law firm. As an organization that opposes market dominance and manipulation by Big Tech companies, I can't begin to express how disturbing this is.”
Paul Weiss accused Cantor, himself a former lawyer at the firm, of being biased because of his past work representing Google foes, including Yelp, the trade group News Media Alliance and Washington Post parent News Corp. Judge Leonie Brinkema dismissed Google's arguments as a “misinformation defense.”
Yelp and the News/Media Alliance, meanwhile, accused Paul, Weiss of changing his position by agreeing to defend Google in the case and improperly using knowledge he gained while working with the company's critics. They asked the court to bar the firm from representing Google.
Brinkema also dismissed the motion in October but imposed severe restrictions, including ordering one Paul, Weiss lawyer to be removed from the case and blocking Google from introducing evidence related to Yelp and the trade group.
In the July filing, News Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Paul Weiss. The company may have violated the judge's restrictions and violated attorney-client confidentiality by turning over certain documents in the AdTech litigation.
Republican leaders have begun to criticize Ms Harris for her reliance on Mr Dunn.
In a letter dated September 10th The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to report by no later than September 24 on how the Justice Department is “working to combat potential conflicts of interest or political bias” related to Dunn's involvement in the Google trial.
Meanwhile, a top adviser to the Trump campaign slammed Dunn's actions as “outrageous” and argued they showed Harris would “never stand up to Big Tech.”
In his opening statement, Dunn argued that the Justice Department's lawsuit, brought by Biden-Harris administration appointees last January, would have dire “unintended consequences” if it resulted in forcibly breaking up Google's monopoly in the digital advertising market.
“Certainly, in a market where the government claims Google has a permanent 91% market share, it's deeply disturbing for Karen Dunn to speak out against 'government interference' and then walk away to prepare for a presidential debate with VP candidate Harris,” said Lee Hepner, chief counsel for the Project on American Economic Freedom. I wrote to X.
