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.
