Many DOJ attorneys resigned from this case in protest of it being brought to bear too quickly. Bill Barr, US Attorney General, overruled senior DOJ attorneys who felt that it was impossible to bring a strong case against Google by rushing it before the election.
As a result, this complaint being brought is considered legally weak, and it gives Google's legal team a huge advantage in fighting it. If the decision to accelerate the case, at the cost of its strength, causes the complaint to fail, it'll probably be the last antitrust case against Google we'll see for some time.
Last federal case probably. The Democratic states Attorneys Generals mostly have not signed onto the lawsuit because they don't want to be bound by unfavorable settlement terms (sorry I can't remember where I read that in the last couple days)
That's a good point. Right now it's unclear whether the Dem AGs really do reject the suit or whether they just don't want to add legitimacy pre-election.
Did sound an awful lot like they thought the suit was ill-timed and half-baked, though. I might have been misled by editorial content in the reporting.
This means Louisiana's Governor is John Edwards, a democrat, and normally one refers to a US State being led by a Governor... not an AG. Though a legal filing is led by an AG... so the comments when added together led to ambiguity I found funny, and decided to play with. I should have linked to the Governor first, and fully explained my joke. I understand comedy is not what we come here for, but sometimes, it's good to not take everything so seriously.
The questions is if a stronger case would see the light of day in the next four years with a change in administration. Maybe Barr thinks the answer is no.
If the administration changes, and they don't want to pursue the case, they can just drop it or flop it. Barr will not get a result before Inauguration so he's reliant on the next (or re-elected) adminstration regardless.
Not if the administration slow walks it, drags it out and then intentionally poorly presents its case as they realize its not in their interest to actually win it – which, if you spare me the speculation, is what a cynical person might say happened in the Oracle v. Google case, given that a positive result for Oracle there may mean Google now has huge swaths of newly-found copyrightable APIs of its own that its sitting on.
Note I say *the administration and not any particular candidate. I think both parties could (not to say they necessarily would) use this as mostly a political ploy to appeal to their bases without changing anything too drastic and walk away saying "we tried, blame the other side for the outcome" should they want to.
Yeah, I don't see how Google could pursue something like that without turning a large part of the market off using Google technologies. Doesn't mean they wont try though.
You have three months left to put the next admin "on the record". But you only have two weeks left to influence the election. I think it's clear from the timing what the priority is.
Yeah, puts them on record as bringing forth a weak case that's sure to lose.
Sounds to me like the current administration wants anti-trust to fail and going Leroy Jenkins on it right now is ensuring that a potential Biden administration has no hope of getting a strong case together. And if the current administration gets another term, they can push out a toothless settlement and claim "victory".
Exactly, it's a smart move. If a Biden administration wants to go easy on Google (and let's be honest: they do), now it'll be out in the open for everyone to see.
Democrats for a generation have been tough talkers about corporate power when speaking to the public, but doves when in private (or at fundraisers). Pinning them down is smart politics.
This makes no sense. Bringing a weak case now guarantees that DOJ won't pursue another case in the future after it gets its ass handed to it in court. There is plenty of support for going after big tech on both sides of the aisle --albeit for different reasons.
Here's a novel idea, how about we judge Bill Barr on his overriding multiple DOJ personnel in the weeks before an election instead of what intent you want to ascribe to a Biden admin. If the intent was to actually put pressure on the Biden admin, he had another 3 months to continue to build the case and then announce between the election and inauguration.
Bringing a weak case now guarantees that DOJ won't pursue another case in the future after it gets its ass handed to it in court
Simply because a complaint was filed does not mean that investigation doesn't continue. It's not as if the complaint cannot be amended or new complaints cannot be made.
But your question begging aside regarding this being a "weak case", if Barr felt (justly or unjustly) that the case wouldn't have been brought by a Biden administration then this may have been the best opportunity to make the complaint. It's not unreasonable to think that a Biden administration might be more sympathetic to Google. After all, Google was a prominent advising figure during the Obama administration and Harris is a San Francisco politician with Google relationships. Maybe that's a cynical view of the Biden administration or maybe it's not sufficiently cynical in evaluating Barr's motives. Such is politics and I don't really trust any of them.
> Simply because a complaint was filed does not mean that investigation doesn't continue.
While true, it does mean that you think you can make the case, which not many people think that they can, including a bunch of career prosecutors. I haven't seen a single outside analyst that has said this is a good case. Let's check in on what the market thinks of this case: GOOG: up 1.39% today as of time of this comment.
> that the case wouldn't have been brought by a Biden administration then this may have been the best opportunity to make the complaint.
Why? Why not November 4, or December 3, or January 14? Why now, 2 weeks before an election. It reeks of political motivation. Even if that wasn't the intent, it has the appearance of that intent which could have easily been avoided by simply waiting until after the election day.
Why? Why not November 4, or December 3, or January 14? Why now, 2 weeks before an election. It reeks of political motivation.
There are more types of political motivation than just vote seeking, and the timing is certainly political. If there's any time to get Biden and/or Harris on the record regarding whether they will continue to pursue the complaint is now. There will be no motivation for them to do so after the election no matter who wins.
> If there's any time to get Biden and/or Harris on the record regarding whether they will continue to pursue the complaint is now
Huh? How does doing this now, when the Trump campaign sucks up all the oxygen in the room going to lead to someone asking the Biden campaign about this.
99% of the people will literally not care what Biden has to say about this case, or what an independent DOJ under a Biden admin chooses to do with this in 3 months from now. It's only value is the current news cycle and hence vote seeking.
The problem there is that then we'll hear complaints that the incoming administration is either incompetent or corrupt for the Google probe failing or being dropped.
This seems like a pretty decent hedge on the outcome of the election to me. If it a strong case and they win, Barr can take credit if Trump stays in office or if Biden wins and cleans house.
If they lose the case and Trump is re-elected, Barr can lick his wounds and try again in a year or so with a stronger case.
If they lose the case and Biden cleans house, he can blame the Biden administration for dropping the ball.
Their goal isn't to actually enforce antitrust though, it's to appear strong for the election. So anything after November is completely useless to them. Your comment implies that once Democrats take over, there will be no more appetite for an antitrust case, which is not true.
That would make sense if the goal was to actually win the case. The actual goal is optics and to feed the victim complex of one side of the "culture war" ahead of the election.
The comment about “just before an election” is kind of interesting to me. If the law doesn’t dictate that the powers of the government aren’t valid at this time, then shouldn’t they still be doing their job?
Would waiting a few months cause large problems in their ability to do that job? Would it significantly decrease the risk of this being seen as some kind of politicized decision?
If anything, an anti-trust prosecution is more likely to go ahead in the unlikely event Biden takes office. The Democratic party has a much greater willingness to engage in regulatory actions against large businesses than does the GOP.
The GOP pushing a rushed (and therefore, weak) case now smells of a designed-to-fail effort that will only strengthen Google's position by poisoning the well against effective anti-trust efforts in the future.
It may also be partisan. Facebook has received considerably less attention from Washington as it has become more cooperative with Republican demands that conservative-oriented fabricated news remain on the platform[0]. Google has made no such commitments and might be in the GOP's sights as a result. While the DOJ is playing to lose, defending the case will cost Google money and this could be a lever to encourage them to follow Facebook's lead and give preferential treatment to conservative fake news.
There is no evidence that Biden would go after big tech at all. It's not part of his platform. They are benefitting bigly from donations and favorable coverage from FAANG. Biden himself is prone to sell out to foreign companies as evidenced by his son's dealings in China, Ukraine, and Russia. You can't expect someone that corrupt to go after monopoly corruption.
You’re making two common mistakes, hopefully unwittingly: don’t confuse the modest leanings of FAANG workers with their bosses’ - the major tech companies PACs and executives heavily donate to whoever they think will be able to lighten regulation or give them favorable tax breaks. Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey are not freak unicorns but represent a sizable fraction of people and money.
Secondly, try to find evidence supporting the wild claims going around about either Biden. You’ll note that these claims tend to be very long on supposition but short on evidence and the people promoting them hace significant conflicts of interest. Just as when most of the same people said Clinton was more corrupt than Trump, they’re banking on you reading the headline but not critically examining the story.
In a world that is increasing polarized it is important to remember:
Just because evidence that contradicts your world view doesn't exist within you filter bubble of preferred information sources doesn't necessarily mean that evidence doesn't exist period.
Yes, I'm quite aware of that — note that I was suggesting that OP look for the actual evidence rather than relying on other people's claims. Their echoing of attacks which have been unsupported by evidence but common in conservative circles suggested that they were inside such a filter bubble
I think it’s very different because the original person made a very bold claim, and the other said “I don’t know if I’ll believe that without evidence”. The burden of proof lies on the one who makes the original claim, not the one who doesn’t believe it without evidence.
Without making a judgement on the veracity of the claims.
There is at least circumstantial evidence in this case. I have noticed that the tactic used to defend biden has become to place insurmountable burden of proof on anyone who claims wrong doing while giving the bidens every benefit of the doubt. Which is gaslighting.
That is akin to saying "there is no evidence OJ killed his wife. The bloody glove found at his home has all the hallmarks of being planted by russian intelligence".
I can't speak for OP but while this is a common cognitive pitfall it's also one which you can intentionally correct for by attempting to anchor your beliefs on original sources and making an effort to find things outside of your immediate community. People are going to be successful at this to varying degrees but as we can see currently there are large segments of the population who never try.
Sure, here's Politico's Quint Forgey quoting the Director of National Intelligence that the laptop (source of the emails) is in the FBI's possession and that it is authentically Hunter's: https://twitter.com/QuintForgey/status/1318166732419235841
And here's the NYPost article itself, excerpts included:
`Biden wrote that Ye had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay him $10 million annually “for introductions alone.”`
`"Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s [joint venture’s] investments."`
`The documents obtained by The Post also include an “Attorney Engagement Letter” executed in September 2017 in which one of Ye’s top lieutenants, former Hong Kong government official Chi Ping Patrick Ho, agreed to pay Biden a $1 million retainer for “Counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer.`
This is the problem with getting your information from Twitter. You're taking a public statement from a political appointee whose boss very badly needs an attack angle and generalizing it without cause. We know that the non-partisan staff have been telling Congress and the public that there are Russian attempts to influence the election[1,2] involving some of the people in this story[3].
This matters because you're taking a single very specific claim as proof an entire story. The DNI made a very specific denial that Hunter Biden's laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign — we don't know what level of certainty the analysts have that this was actually Biden's laptop, that the data on it wasn't modified after it left Biden's control, that he wasn't fine parsing this being a disinformation campaign run by anyone other than the Russian government, or that the emails presented in the NY Post story are authentic and complete.
Continuing the trend, there's a conservative media figure citing unnamed officials with uncorroborated claims. We don't know how well informed they are, what conflicts of interest they have, etc. but we do know that their chain of command has a number of people who have significant personal investment in a particular election result. This is why anything involving politically sensitive claims really needs to be done as openly as possible since history is full of examples of various ways officials have mislead the public.
Similarly, you are presenting as proof a JPEG on a conservative blog showing two signatures which aren't close matches and have none of the provenance you'd need to demonstrate that similarities aren't due to one of them being a forgery based on the public record. Even if the receipt was authentic, that tells you he dropped a Mac off, which could be part of but is not on its own sufficient to say that the data came from that Mac.
I mention all of this because it's how the process works: you're convinced that Biden is corrupt because the sources you read presented some nice juicy headlines and just enough plausible details to underpin all of those conclusions. If you remember Guccifer 2.0, one of the best ways to make a forgery seem more realistic is to put it in with legitimate but innocuous documents. The decision to sit on this story until close before an election but not release the data or an independent forensic report is exactly what you'd do in this case.
My suggestion that you look for the evidence is to put an upper bound on how confidently you should present that narrative as fact — for example, doesn't it seem interesting that this conversation about laptops is still missing any evidence that a meeting or conversation happened or that it involved anything more than a businessman wangling a handshake with a prominent global figure? It's certainly possible that Hunter Biden did something dodgy but I personally would wait to call his father corrupt without strong or, really, any evidence of that. Similarly, the NY Post story repeated the long-debunked claim about VP Biden having tried to get a prosecutor fired for investigating Burisma — that certainly doesn't mean that the rest of the story is completely wrong but it does call into question how much a wise reader should trust the story without further corroboration.
Your #1 and #2 links simply indicate a general assessment of several foreign entities including China, Russia, Iran and their general attitudes towards the candidates (it also indicates China, our number one threat strategically, militarily, technologically, democratically, medically, prefers Biden). No doubt they are all trying to influence the U.S. election. None of that has anything to do with the damning evidence of Hunter Biden selling access to his father for millions of dollars.
I linked to professional staffers on Twitter from Politico and Fox. They're not random contributors, they're journalists and they're quoting specific government officials.
At any rate, I know, neither journalists nor government officials have a very good reputation these days, but you asked for evidence, and I provided that, along with photo evidence of Hunter's signature on the laptop repair ticket, which matches the Paternity suit signature filed by Hunter's baby mama in Arkansas last year. It's the same RHB (Robert Hunter Biden) signature. I don't know what to tell you. Look again.
The laptop had incriminating photos of Hunter smoking crack. Those photos were published. Where else would they have come from? Also, the dates on the emails match up with Secret Service travel logs from 2014: https://www.theepochtimes.com/secret-service-travel-logs-mat...
I'm convinced Biden is corrupt, because power corrupts. That's an almost universal law of human nature. And Biden had power for 47 years. You cannot be a part of that scene for that long without corruption rubbing off on you. After a while, you start to think you're invincible. Especially if the media covers for you. Conservatives don't have that benefit. They're always under far more scrutiny than liberals, because over 90% of journalists are liberal and they don't cover Democrats the same way. They spent 3 years on a fake Russian scandal against Trump. Spent $50 million+ and wasted the nation's time based on some DNC paid for propaganda hit piece by a washed up ex-MI6 agent. And the media spent 3 years breathlessly covering every "bombshell" report only to come up with nothing.
Again, there is signatures, emails, photos, and witnesses on the Biden story and you had a made up tabloid story that dominated news coverage on Trump for THREE YEARS.
> Conservatives don't have that benefit. They're always under far more scrutiny than liberals, because over 90% of journalists are liberal and they don't cover Democrats the same way. They spent 3 years on a fake Russian scandal against Trump. Spent $50 million+ and wasted the nation's time based on some DNC paid for propaganda hit piece by a washed up ex-MI6 agent.
This is a great example of what happens when you uncritically seek out information which satisfies your political biases without thinking about it critically. I’m sure you do believe what you wrote above because people you trust have told you to do so, but wishing doesn’t mean that it’s true.
For example, do you really expect anyone to believe there’s a global “the media” with uniform beliefs spanning everyone from the BBC and NPR to Fox News and The Guardian? Want to try using evidence to show that, say, journalists were covering for Hillary Clinton during the previous election? (Or for the amusing belief that they’re covering for Biden now by totally not covering this other than all of the hundreds of stories running about it?)
Your mischaracterization of the Russia investigation similarly shows that you’re only reading sources friendly to the subjects. There were multiple sources, none of them the Steele dossier, and it certainly found a lot more than nothing – all facts you’ve had easily available to learn for years but have either chosen not to or are at least hoping your readers have not:
I’m not going to waste time further responding to someone acting in bad faith but don’t think I wasn’t amused by you going from claiming that a major multi-government intelligence investigation was a “made up tabloid story” while at the same time complaining that people are calling for verification of a tabloid story.
In contemporary American politics, "filter bubbles" that suppress facts--as opposed to providing a slanted interpretation of the meaning of facts--are exclusively a product of conservative politics.
If there was concrete evidence of malfeasance involving either Biden, actual media outlets (NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC, CBS, etc) would report on it. They might downplay it, but they would report it.
In contrast, conservative media gleefully provides politically motivated "alternative facts[0]" -- more properly known as 'lies'[1] -- and fails to report on stories that are politically harmful to conservatives. Conservative media is not intended to inform; it is intended to keep people ignorant of actual, objective, facts.[2]
Has your filter bubble told you that Trump was impeached specifically for attempting to blackmail the Ukrainian government into framing Biden?
Has your filter bubble told you that this kind of conduct is not normal in a democracy?
Just because conservative media lies to people to further a political objective does not mean that the entire media ecosystem is equally bad.
The issue I see there is the Democratic establishment is pro-corporate before anything else. So yeah, if Biden is elected, this will never have seen the light of day.
The Democratic establishment is more pro-corporate than the Republican establishment? In what reality is this. Like I don't get where this idea comes from that you have to be pro-business or anti-business. I can be both pro-worker and pro-business, it's not black and white, it's shades of gray.
> The Democratic establishment is more pro-corporate than the Republican establishment?
It depends on the company in question.
And, yes, Republicans right now are much more likely to be skeptical of Silicon Valley giants than are Democrats, who have been very cozy with Democrats since 2008.
The biggest and most powerful corporations in the world right now are tech companies, of which Republicans are increasingly skeptical and with which Democrats are increasingly cozy. So of course it's relevant to a question about how Democrats could be seen as pro-corporate.
> The biggest and most powerful corporations in the world right now are tech companies,
Not even close to true. JP Morgan, ExxonMobil, Citi, Chevron, ATT, Comcast,, Walmart, GE, GM, Berkshire Hatahway, Pfizer, Johnson & Jhonson... I could go on. Yes, Apple, MS, FB, Google are huge tech companies, but they are not the most common and not by any means "the most powerful".
The most clear and objective way to compare corporations is market capitalization, and the seven corporations with the biggest market cap in the world are all tech companies.[1]
How powerful a company is a bit harder to judge, but if anything tech companies punch above their weight when it comes to political power. Johnson & Johnson has ten times the market cap of twitter, but much less political power.
The difference is none of the companies you listed have the same amount of control over the internet. SV giants are the new gatekeepers of information.
Exactly. Those companies are more of a "you buy things from them" than the "your knowledge and view of the world is filtered through it" of Google. Google yields tremendous power over people just by what results it shows them when they search for things.
You're a libertarian, aren't you? Frankly, business's interests and worker interests are fundamentally at odds solely because labor is so expensive and having to accommodate workers' needs is expensive.
In what reality are you living in that Obama didn't give corporate America billions of dollars in hand-outs in the aftermath of 2008? Republicans aren't any better, but Democrats like to pretend they care about workers, when all they really care about is enriching the wealthy.
Not wanting to destroy your countries industries and creating a balance between workers and businesses is not the same as believing that today's large businesses are over regulated and workers have too much power.
If you are anti-capitalist, fine, but your complaint isn't the Dems are pro-business, the argument is that they are still capitalists.
Honestly, America is pro-corporate before anything else - neither party is actually a good advocate for labour or consumer protection, you only see these things on the fringes of the parties.
I doubt it. The democrats want this too. However, Biden would have much more likely listened to his advisors rather than this case where no doubt Trump is throwing stuff at the wall hoping it sticks and helps him with the election. Most people are probably in favor of holding Google's feet to the fire.
Many DOJ attorneys resigned from this case in protest
Wouldn't this give Barr the opportunity to bring in people who always agree with him and make the situation worse? Not just this case against Google, but in general.
Yes, but that doesn't mean the case will gain the approval of judges. Of course, this is why the current administration has worked very hard to place as many judges as possible on the federal courts, but since federal judges hold lifetime appointments they sometimes develop an unexpected degree of independent thought once they land on a suitably comfortable bench and fail to please their erstwhile patrons, instead pursuing the respect of their judicial peers or their legacy.
There's an interview where Barr is asked about his legacy that's worth looking up, it's a great example of the conflict between short-term expediency and long-term sustainability.
> Since federal judges hold lifetime appointments they sometimes develop an unexpected degree of independent thought once they land on a suitably comfortable bench and fail to please their erstwhile patrons, instead pursuing the respect of their judicial peers or their legacy.
Isn't there a contradiction between independent thought and pursing the respect of their judicial peers?
> There's an interview where Barr is asked about his legacy that's worth looking up, it's a great example of the conflict between short-term expediency and long-term sustainability.
I think you're referring to him saying "everybody dies", and you take this as short-term expediency? I don't agree. I think it's a statement of independence: I will not be manipulated by the people who write "the first draft of history", I'll do what I think is right.
Resigned from the case, but not resigned from the dept?
When you argue a case in court, you have to be a "zealous advocate" meaning you have to believe what you're arguing. I don't think a lawyer even employed by Justice Dept. can be compelled to argue a specific case.
Of course he can probably cook up whatever reason to fire them.
edit: in case it wasn't obvious, IANAL - thanks for clarifications
Attorneys argue positions they do not agree with or believe in all the time. Their job is to represent their client and bring about the best case possible, in the interests of a system designed to be adversarial.
The concept of “zealous advocacy” is such a minor part of the ABA’s Rules of Professional Conduct to begin with. Attorneys just like to use that one term as an excuse to be assholes, while forgetting the myriad of other ethical requirements in the Rules.
While I commend them for taking a stand, they should absolutely be fired for failing to refusing to represent their client, aka the Federal government. They have effectively terminated their relationship with the client and should no longer be representing them.
In fact, the first footnote in Rule 1.3 (where the text for “zeal with advocacy” occurs outside the preamble), it reads:
“[1] A lawyer should pursue a matter on behalf of a client despite opposition, obstruction or personal inconvenience to the lawyer, and take whatever lawful and ethical measures are required to vindicate a client's cause or endeavor.”
For private attorneys, you refuse to represent your client on ethical grounds, you do not get to continue billing them. Not sure why it should be any different here.
They're not private attorneys who have the US as their client. They work for an organization (DoJ) that has the US as its client. That organization can have whatever policies it wants about how cases are allocated among its staff.
Yes, I am fully aware that they are not private attorneys. I am also aware that Federal employment laws are unlikely to support firing them on account of recusing themselves from a case.
However, that does not mean the ABA's Rules of Professional Conduct do not apply to them, nor does it mean they should not be fired for choosing to terminate representation of their client.
It sets a terrible precedent in a system that is designed to have someone willing to fight on each side for their client. If the government wants to bring about a weak case, let them. The opposing party has their own representation point out those weaknesses, if that is truly the case.
So whether they can be fired or not, doesn't change the fact that they should be, or that they should resign from the Department.
> Their job is to represent their client and bring about the best case possible
To be clear, the current issue is not that they do or don't believe the case on its merits, but that they don't believe they have enough time to push the best case possible.
Fair enough, but I think that reasoning is akin to a public defender saying they won’t defend their client because they are overworked and didn’t have enough time to prepare. Someone else is still going to have to do it, only now they will have even less time to prepare.
There are legal processes that can be used to continue trials and other hearings, which they’re fully aware of. Their client said to go, it is not their job to decide when, only to offer advice against such a decision (in theory).
It's more like the public defender's boss is deciding when to schedule the trial, and deliberately schedules it before their performance review instead of scheduling it to improve the chance that the case is successful.
I’m not sure how that example negates what I said. Regardless of the circumstances as to why a case is tried sooner than you would like, it’s still happening. Sometimes it is a judge, sometimes it is a boss, sometimes it is a strategic maneuver by opposing counsel, etc. That doesn’t make it an acceptable excuse to not represent their client’s interests given the time they do have, nor does it make the decision any less impactful to the client they represent.
I guess it is a difficult position to be in, especially in the current administration. If you leave, you know your replacement is likely going to be unqualified, yes men. If you stay, you conscience will bother you and you won't be able to do much good anyway.
That is the modus operandi of this entire Administration. Trump has fired advisors and cabinet over and over until almost all the current positions are filled with yes men and women or not filled at all and just have people holding the position and maintaining status quo.
We've been waiting for them to build a strong case for several years. It will likely take several more for it to work its way through the courts. At some point the interests of the public in having a timely curb to Google's actions outweighs the value of preparing a perfect case.
Also, as I understand it (not a lawyer, just listening to law students), this filing’s purpose is to establish a prima-facia case. There aren’t really many ‘arguments’ as to why Section 2 of the USC 15 has been violated, this is just trying to convince a judge to hear the case.
I’d wait until the judge agrees to hear the case and cases are cited to really make any predictions. The cited case law will set the first odds. It feels too early to cast lots.
The ones who resigned didn't happen to have their own political motivations as well? These cases always have plenty of time and areas for arguments refined.
I can't read anything with politicized names and highly question the perfectly placed PRified counter points.
The truth, aka middle ground (if such a thing even exists anymore), is the hardest thing to come by these days. Lawyers working for a gov agency are the least reputable in this area in my books.
> at the cost of its strength, causes the complaint to fail, it'll probably be the last antitrust case against Google we'll see for some time.
The conspiracy theorist in me says this was on purpose. Barr isn't rushing this case before the election to make it look like they're doing something, they're rushing it to sabotage any future attempts to rein in Google.
Thanks for the input. I had assumed they'd been working on this behind the scenes for awhile. I should have realized with the current administration one should never believe that best practices were being practiced.
You're reading a whole lot into this single sentence in the article:
> Some lawyers in the department worry that Mr. Barr’s determination to bring a complaint this month could weaken their case and ultimately strengthen Google’s hand, according to interviews with 15 lawyers who worked on the case or were briefed on the department’s strategy.
It says "some" lawyers expressed concern, according to interviews with 15 of them. Nothing about that sentence alleges that all 15 they spoke with expressed concern. Some could be 2 or 3 and all 15 were aware of the concern.
As a result, this complaint being brought is considered legally weak, and it gives Google's legal team a huge advantage in fighting it. If the decision to accelerate the case, at the cost of its strength, causes the complaint to fail, it'll probably be the last antitrust case against Google we'll see for some time.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/politics/google-antitr...