Vice President Kamala Harris’ cozy ties with a high-powered attorney representing Google in an upcoming federal antitrust case are an obvious “conflict of interest,” according to the Donald Trump campaign.
The Trump campaign blasted Harris just days after The Post reported on her close ties to white-shoe law firm Paul Weiss and its top litigator Karen Dunn, who plays a leading role on Google’s outside defense team in the Biden-Harris Justice Department’s case targeting its digital ad business.
The Google trial is slated to begin on Monday — just one day before Harris and Trump are scheduled to face off in a crucial presidential debate.
Dunn has helped Harris with debate prep and assisted in crafting her policy platform ahead of the 2024 election, according to reports.
“Kamala Harris will never stand up to Big Tech because she’s being coached on what to say in the debates by Google’s top lawyer,” Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh told Fox News. “Think about how outrageous it is — their administration is suing Google, but Harris is taking political advice from the defendant’s lawyer.”
“Any first-year law student knows that’s a conflict of interest,” Murtaugh said in an Aug. 26 interview. “But it’s not surprising because Big Tech and the Biden-Harris White House have been conspiring to censor and trample the rights of law-abiding citizens since they gained power.”
The Post has reached out to the Harris campaign and Paul Weiss for comment.
Google faces a potential breakup of its empire after a federal judge ruled last month that the company is a “monopolist” that illegally dominates the online search market.
The feds are similarly seeking a breakup in the digital advertising case.
Google’s defense got off to a rough start last week after the federal judge overseeing the non-jury trial called the company’s automatic deletion of employee chat logs a “clear abuse of privilege.”
Some anti-monopoly watchdogs have expressed concerns that tech-friendly advisers in Harris’ orbit could push behind the scenes for leniency for Google and other Big Tech firms in the crosshairs of antitrust cops.
“Karen Dunn is being paid extravagantly by Google to get it off the hook — ideally through a slap-on-the-wrist settlement — so it’s concerning that she has so much access to Vice President Harris … and their teams,” one Capitol Hill veteran who requested anonymity to discuss the matter told The Post last month.
Aside from Dunn, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp is reportedly heading up a “Lawyers Committee for Kamala Harris” effort to raise money for her campaign.
Other Harris advisers who have drawn scrutiny include ex-US Attorney General Eric Holder and her brother-in-law and Uber general counsel Tony West, each of whom are seen as Silicon Valley allies.
If she is elected president, Harris would have wide latitude to appoint officials in the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission.
Harris has touted controversial plans to lower grocery prices and housing costs — but has yet to clarify her stance on Big Tech monopolies.
Meanwhile, Trump has publicly ripped Google on several occasions during his campaign — most notably while accusing the search giant of suppressing information about the assassination attempt he survived in July.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has demanded answers from Google on why the company’s search engine omitted the typical list of “autocomplete” suggested results when prompted about the July 13 shooting in its search bar.
Google has denied the omissions were made due to censorship and said the predictive queries are subject to “built-in protections related to political violence” that were out of date in the shooting’s immediate aftermath.
Trump’s DOJ originally brought the antitrust case targeting Google’s search monopoly in 2020.
