Revolving Door: Big Tech Staffed With Hundreds Of ExDOJ Employees Amid Antitrust Battle
Big Tech is made up of hundreds of former Justice Department employees, some of whom have key intelligence in anti-government investigative methods, according to one watchdog's "revolving door" analysis.
Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and HP have employed at least 360 DOJ employees, most since 2011 and in one case since 2000, according to an analysis by the American Foundation for Accountability, a conservative watchdog group. . The investigation, which also includes information about Justice Department employees working for Big Tech, comes amid the department's antitrust lawsuit against Google and other investigations into the tech giant.
ACADEMIC WITH GOOGLE IN A SUPREME COURT CASE
"It's usually not a problem when people move between government and industry because it's usually for professional purposes," AAF President Tom Jones told The Washington Examiner . "Americans should pay attention to this revolving door because it is an ideological relationship in which the left moves back and forth between industry and government to implement its liberal agenda."
"When government levers aren't available, they use Big Tech levers to trigger alerts," said Jones, former head of the opposition research program for Senator Ted's 2016 presidential campaign. He added Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) to the legislative directors. "He is evil and must be stopped."
In January, the DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google seeking to divest part of the company's online advertising business. This is the second time in two years that the administration has sued the tech giant after the Trump DOJ in October 2020 accused Google of acting anti-competitively through alleged monopoly power.
Meanwhile, Big Tech is at the forefront of investigations by the Biden administration and Congress. The DOJ recently stepped up its long-term investigation into Apple that began in 2019 and is evaluating its mobile software policies, The Wall Street Journal reports. In February, for example, Cruz launched a sweeping investigation into Meta, Google, Twitter and Facebook, TikTok's parent company, seeking information about their algorithms and alleged use of "blacklists" to undermine conservative websites.
The AAF analysis, which is based on public reports and LinkedIn data, was conducted by Lawrence Reicher and Chris Sonderby. Reicher, who headed the Justice Department's Office of Enforcement and Compliance from 2020 to 2022, is now Amazon's corporate and antitrust litigator. He also served as Deputy Attorney General between 2019 and 2020.
Sonderby has served as vice president and assistant general counsel at Meta since 2010, where he oversees a legal team of more than 500 people. From 2006 to 2010, he served as DOJ's chief Asia representative, and from 1998 to 2006, he served as Assistant US Attorney in San Francisco.
In total, Google has rehired 40 Justice Department employees since Biden took office, according to AAF. Amazon has since hired 61 former Justice Department employees, while Microsoft employs 26 legal and technology employees, Watchdog said.
There are also 41 current DOJ employees in "influence roles" who have worked for Big Tech, according to Watchdog analysis. These two are Glenn Leon and Dorian Hurley.
Leon, chief of the Justice Department's Criminal Fraud Division since September 2022, served as HP's Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer from 2014 to 2022. He also worked at the DOJ under former President Barack Obama between 1998 and 2014. during which time the government handled several cases involving HP .
Hurley, a general counsel who joined the department in June 2022, was at Amazon from August 2021 to May 2022, according to her LinkedIn profile. Previously, he served as judicial clerk for the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire and passport specialist for the Department of State.
That sparked a heated debate in Congress, with Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), a longtime Big Tech critic, said in mid-March that he doesn't see Republican leaders passing tougher laws. The Antimonopoly Subcommittee of the DPR Judiciary Committee is chaired by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has become libertarian on these issues and is seen by most conservative Republicans as less likely to target corporate power than Buck.
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Buck and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) formed the Congressional Antitrust Caucus in early February to "hold Big Tech and monopolies accountable."
"The Congressional Antitrust Caucus will provide concerned members of Congress with the opportunity to hold monopolies accountable and promote competition in major technology markets an opportunity to bring competition policy to Congress and to the minds of the American people," Buck said at the time. This is an important policy area and one where thoughtful bipartisan work can pay off."
