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A Senate committee on Thursday approved a critic of tech giants to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division, sending his nomination to the full Senate for final vote.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted for Jonathan Kanter to lead the split, not counting how each lawmaker voted. But a Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, wanted the nomination to be marked as a vote against.
Mr. Kanter said during the confirmation hearing He said he supports “strong antitrust enforcement in the technology space”. As a lawyer in private practice, Mr. Kanter represented critics of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple and helped bring antitrust lawsuits against tech giants.
As is generally expected, if approved by the full Senate, it will join other Silicon Valley critics in key antitrust positions. Lina Khan, a young legal scholar who wrote a popular Amazon review, leads the Federal Trade Commission. Tim Wu, another scholar who advocates for more antitrust sanctions against large corporations, plays an economic policy role in the White House.
Some lawmakers praised Mr. Kanter on Thursday, saying he was the right person to address issues of corporate concentration across the economy.
“We believe in letting markets work,” said Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. “And markets are not working really well for some people right now.’
Mr Cornyn, who voted against the nomination, said he shared Mr Kanter’s concerns about the tech industry but was concerned that it would “use antitrust tools like a hammer to achieve political or social ends” in a broader sense.
Critics of Mr. Kanter also questioned whether he could continue to prosecute the cases he promoted as a lawyer for the tech giants’ rivals. The Justice Department has sued Google, arguing that it illegally maintains its monopoly on online search. It’s investigating whether Apple violated antitrust laws.
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