How Kamala Harris’ cozy ties with Big Tech could enable Google to wiggle out of an antitrust breakup

The Kamala Harris campaign’s cozy ties with Big Tech have sparked worries that Google will be allowed to wiggle out of a proposed breakup of its search empire if she is elected president, The Post has learned.

Harris is close to Paul Weiss – the white-shoe law firm leading Google’s defense in another major antitrust case targeting its digital ad business. Karen Dunn, the firm’s top litigator, is helping Harris with debate prep. Likewise, the firm’s chairman Brad Karp is reportedly heading up a “Lawyers Committee for Kamala Harris” to raise cash for her White House bid.

The former US senator from California is also leaning heavily on Eric Holder, who led the vetting of her potential running mates, and her brother-in-law Tony West, a Silicon Valley ally who took a leave from his role as chief legal officer at Uber to help her campaign. Both are reportedly on the shortlist of potential candidates for Cabinet positions in a Harris administration.

“It’s obviously dramatic in terms of the optics,” said Jeff Hauser, executive director at the Revolving Door Project. “It’s going to be a fork-in-the-road moment for a Harris administration that may become clear even before she’s inaugurated if we see whether or not these figures get slotted for key White House or Justice Department jobs.”

The Justice Department will likely press to dismantle Google after Judge Amit Mehta ruled the company has an illegal monopoly over online search. While Mehta will weigh potential remedies beginning Sept. 6, the spat will stretch far into the next president’s first term.

The risk of a win for Harris – who, as president, would have power to appoint antitrust leaders in the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission – is that tech-friendly advisers could lobby behind the scenes for leniency toward Google, concerned experts told The Post.

“They could lean on [deputy attorney general] Lisa Monaco to settle,” one well-connected tech policy expert told The Post. “Say ‘OK, we proved our point, go get Google’s best offer, make sure it has 3 commas and let’s call it a day.’ And nothing changes.”

While serving as attorney general in the tech-friendly Obama administration in 2010, Holder blocked then-DOJ antitrust chief Christine Varney from pursuing a probe into Google for monopolizing search, a source close to the DOJ said. Instead, the FTC investigated and did not press charges.

A Harris campaign spokesperson declined to comment. Representatives for Paul Weiss, Eric Holder and the DOJ did not return requests for comment.

Donald Trump – whose DOJ first brought an antitrust case targeting Google search in 2020 – is far more likely to demand a meaningful crackdown on the company, according to Bill Kovacic, a Republican-appointed FTC Chair from 2008 to 2009.

“I sense Trump distrusts and dislikes the tech sector more than she does,” Kovacic said. “Trump thinks all the tech leaders kept him from winning in 2020. He might want to punish them by forcing a breakup.”

In recent interviews, Trump has referred to Google as “illegitimate,” said the company “has to be careful” and claimed he had “a feeling Google is going to be close to shutdown.”

Makan Delrahim, the DOJ’s antitrust chief during the Trump administration, intended from the beginning to pursue a breakup of Google, the source close to the DOJ said.

Harris has yet to clearly define her views on tech-related antitrust. In a Friday speech detailing her economic platform, Harris pushed controversial plans to lower grocery prices and housing costs, but did not address whether she plans to crack down on Big Tech monopolies.

She has received donations from Google in the past and reportedly presented herself as an ally to the tech industry during a 2010 meeting with company employees.  

Advisers who oppose a major anti-monopoly push wouldn’t necessarily need Cabinet positions to wield behind-the-scenes influence on antitrust issues, experts said.

A longtime Democratic operative, Dunn was once considered a candidate to serve as head of the DOJ’s antitrust division – a role that later went to current boss Jonathan Kanter. She also helped attorney general Merrick Garland prepare for his Senate confirmation hearing in 2021.

Aside from her work for Google, Dunn has represented Apple and Uber in major court battles.

“Karen Dunn is being paid extravagantly by Google to get it off the hook – ideally through a slap on the wrist settlement – so it’s concerning that she has so much access to Vice President Harris, Garland, Monaco and their teams,” one Capitol Hill veteran who requested anonymity to discuss the matter said.

Paul Weiss employees have contributed a whopping $1.46 million to Democrats this cycle – more than any other law firm, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. The firm also employs multiple former members of the Biden-Harris DOJ.

Still, a potential Harris administration would be limited in its ability to affect the DOJ’s Google cases, even if it were inclined to take a friendlier approach to Big Tech.

Any attempt to meddle in the DOJ’s affairs could prompt a sharp public backlash from the progressive wing of the Democratic party, according to Hauser.

That was evident earlier this year when Democrat mega-donor Reid Hoffman sparked outrage by publicly calling on Harris to fire FTC chair Lina Khan if she is elected.

“I can’t imagine a Harris administration having both the will and the spine to do a ‘Saturday night massacre’ at the antitrust division,” Hauser said. “It would be ‘a-ha, big donors means you do this.’ That is a catastrophic scandal for a new administration to endure.”

Google has already vowed to appeal the federal judge’s ruling in the search case, which means that any penalties that arise from the search trial are likely years away from being implemented.

Mehta determined that Google’s practice of paying billions of dollars to partners like Apple to ensure its search engine is enabled by default on most smartphones had stifled competition.

DOJ attorneys could push Mehta to order Google to sell portions of its business, such as its Android operating system, Chrome web browser and advertising platform AdWords, Bloomberg reported. Other options include ending Google’s default deals or forcing it to share data with rival search engines.

The separate major DOJ antitrust case targeting Google’s alleged monopoly over digital advertising technology is also slated for trial this September – and another loss could similarly upend the company’s business model.