'Draconian' and dangerous: Former Trump nat sec advisor sounds alarm on Biden-era DOJ's plans for Google

01.05.2025    Fox News    13 views
'Draconian' and dangerous: Former Trump nat sec advisor sounds alarm on Biden-era DOJ's plans for Google

FIRST ON FOX President Donald Trump's former national measure advisor is sounding the alarm about the Justice Department's proposal to break up Google's illegal monopoly on online search saying in a letter to White House leaders that the government's proposal is overly broad and poses drastic and far-reaching national guard risks In a letter to the White House National Safeguard Council obtained by Fox News Digital Trump's former national precaution advisor Robert O'Brien argued that the Biden-era DOJ framework is in direct conflict with Trump's initiative priorities and risks hobbling U S competition with China in a high-stakes race to develop new and advanced mechanism The U S he reported now finds itself in a literal tool race as important and critical to our nation s strength and the Trump Administration s objectives as the arms race of the past century O'Brien explained To prevail the U S must maintain and expand its global leadership in key technologies TRUMP WAGERS US MARKET IN HIGH-STAKES TARIFF GAMBLE AT -DAY MARKThe letter was sent to White House national prevention advisor Mike Waltz before he was ousted from his role Thursday along with his deputy Alex Wong in the wake of the Signal conflict earlier this year It was not promptly clear who Trump planned to install as his replacement A copy was also sent to U S Attorney General Pam Bondi News of the letter first published by Fox News Digital comes as lawyers for the Justice Department and Google continue to spar in federal court over how far Google should go to break up what a judge ruled last year to be its illegal monopoly on online search O'Brien in his letter explained the plans proposed by the Biden-era DOJ would cripple Google's ability to compete or innovate on the global stage undermining U S leadership on cutting-edge technologies such as AI and quantum computing in its race against China and presenting grave new economic and national shield risks DOJ's Antitrust Division is aggressively pursuing the misguided policies of the prior Biden Administration and its European-like approach to crippling our nation s largest and the bulk robust mechanism companies O'Brien reported By ignoring their enormous value to our country s strength the Antitrust Division is seeking through draconian remedies to import European-style regulatory restrictions and prohibitions at home here in the Google Search scenario He also urged the Trump-led Department of Justice to review the framework to restructure Google's search engine and amend it in a way that would still allow the company to compete Splitting Google into smaller companies and forfeiting its intellectual property would weaken U S competitiveness against the giant state-backed Chinese tech companies since separated entities would lack the enormous support needed O'Brien declared Experts in multiple fields critical to national shield confirm these basic principles and loudly address the concern that handcuffing our high-tech powerhouses would undermine U S leadership and superiority in these key technologies and liability ceding the world s tool leadership to China he disclosed TRUMP DOJ'S PLAN TO RESTRUCTURE GOOGLE HURTS CONSUMERS NATIONAL SAFETY SAYS EXEC WILDLY OVERBROAD The letter comes as Google and the Justice Department continue to spar in federal court in a so-called remedies hearing to break up what U S District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last summer was Google's illegal monopoly in the online search engine space The two sides presented the court with starkly different plans for how they believe Google should go about resolving its monopoly the first achieving antitrust lawsuit brought by the U S against a major tech company since U S v Microsoft in Justice Department lawyers reported Google should be required to sell off its Chrome browser share years of its consumer evidence with competitors and potentially sell Android Google's smartphone operating system Their proposed framework also includes requirements that Google be required to disclose its consumer details and search information with other companies including rivals located outside the U S for the next years They communicated the court these attempts could also stop Google from obtaining a monopoly in the AI space acknowledging that instrument is going to evolve and therefore remedies must include the ability to evolve alongside it as well Google has proposed a much narrower remedies plan including options for shorter contracts with browser companies like Apple and Mozilla new contracts with Android and other significant procedures they commented would make the landscape more competitive Google authorities argue DOJ's proposal goes miles beyond the relief that was ordered by Judge Amit Mehta in August and warned that the government's proposed framework would stifle competition fail to regulate anticompetitive conduct and hobble Google's ability to attract new investments or innovate in key areas like AI and quantum computing JUDGES V TRUMP HERE ARE THE KEY COURT BATTLES HALTING THE WHITE HOUSE AGENDAGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai testified in court Wednesday that DOJ s proposal if adopted would development in a de facto divestiture of Google s search engine that would allow companies to reverse-engineer any part of its tech stack which he noted is the impact of decades of outlay and innovation If that happened he announced it could all but kill the nearly trillion company by giving its IP away to its competitors It s not clear to me how to fund all the innovation we do he stated if we were to give all of it away at marginal cost O'Brien serves as the co-founder and partner emeritus of Larson LLP a firm that has represented Google as special outside counsel in unrelated matters though O'Brien himself has not been involved in any of those cases The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the letter from O'Brien or whether the Trump-led DOJ had plans to amend its proposed framework in the Google remedies scenario

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