Donald Trump's campaign says Vice President Kamala Harris' close relationship with a top lawyer representing Google in an upcoming federal antitrust lawsuit is a clear “conflict of interest.”
The Trump campaign's slamming of Harris came just days after The Washington Post reported that she has close ties to the law firm Paul, Weiss and its top litigation lawyer, Karen Dunn, who is leading Google's outside legal team in the Biden-Harris Justice Department's lawsuit targeting the company's digital advertising business.
Google's trial is set to begin on Monday, just a day before Harris and Trump are scheduled to face off in a key presidential debate.
Dunn has assisted Harris in preparing for her debates and helped her craft her policy platform for the 2024 election. Reports say.
“Kamala Harris will never stand up to Big Tech because she's being coached by Google's top lawyer on what to say in the debates,” said Tim Murtaugh, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. He told Fox News“Just think about it: the administration is suing Google, and Harris is taking political advice from the defense lawyers, how bad is that?”
“Any first-year law student knows that's a conflict of interest,” Murtaugh said in an interview Aug. 26. “But it's not surprising, because Big Tech and the Biden-Harris administration have conspired to censor and trample the rights of law-abiding citizens since they came to power.”
The Washington Post has reached out to the Harris campaign and Paul Weiss for comment.
Google faces the potential dismantling of its empire after a federal court ruled last month that the company was a “monopoly” that illegally dominated the online search market.
The federal government is similarly seeking a resolution to digital advertising litigation.
Google's defense got off to a tough start last week when the federal judge presiding over the non-jury trial described the company's automatic deletion of employee chat logs as a “clear abuse of power.”
Some anti-monopoly watchdogs have expressed concern that pro-tech advisers to Harris could be pushing behind the scenes for leniency for Google and other big tech companies that are targets of antitrust regulators.
“Karen Dunn is paid a lot of money by Google and would ideally like to escape the company with a lightweight settlement, so her having such access to Vice President Harris and her team is concerning,” a veteran congressional member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, told The Washington Post last month.
In addition to Dunn, Paul, Weiss Chairman Brad Karp is reportedly heading up the Kamala Harris Lawyers Committee, which is raising funds for Kamala Harris' campaign.
Among Ms. Harris's high-profile advisers are former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Ms. Harris' brother-in-law, Uber general counsel Tony West, both of whom are considered allies of Silicon Valley.
If elected president, Harris would have broad power to appoint officials to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
Harris has touted controversial plans to lower food and housing prices, but has yet to reveal her stance on big tech monopolies.
Meanwhile, Trump has publicly criticized Google on several occasions during the campaign, most notably in July when he accused the search giant of hiding information about an assassination attempt that he survived.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has demanded an explanation from Google for why its search engine omitted a typical “autocomplete” list of results when users were asked to type into the search bar about the July 13 shooting.
Google denied that it had been censored and said predictive search was subject to “built-in protections related to political violence” and had become outdated in the aftermath of the shooting.
President Trump's Justice Department originally filed an antitrust lawsuit targeting Google's search monopoly in 2020.
