By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – Gail Slater, President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday.
The department’s antitrust division enforces laws against illegal monopolies and anticompetitive business behavior, alongside the Federal Trade Commission.
Slater, a veteran antitrust attorney and former economic adviser to Vice President JD Vance, has said that her top priority as assistant attorney general will be to protect consumers by scrutinizing industries such as healthcare, tech and agriculture.
Former antitrust enforcers from both Republican and Democratic administrations have praised Slater’s qualifications, as have antitrust hawks in Washington.
“President Trump is making crystal clear he’s continuing this term what he started in his last term: The bipartisan antitrust law-enforcement effort to hold accountable the trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists,” said Mike Davis, former counsel to Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
The Justice Department and state attorneys general are going to trial in April seeking an order that would require Alphabet’s Google to sell its Chrome browser to promote competition in online search. The department is also pursuing antitrust cases against Apple, LiveNation and Visa.
Slater said in written replies to the Senate that while she expects the Trump administration to settle more merger cases, she sees common ground with her predecessors on protecting workers and scrutinizing dominant players buying small rivals.
Policy groups including Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, and the Tech Oversight Project, a group aligned with the progressive left of the Democratic party, have supported Slater’s confirmation.
“The diverse voices and interests that have lined up in support of her nomination reflect that people want to see corporate accountability — not at the expense of economic growth, but as a means to achieving it,” said Amanda Lewis, an antitrust attorney at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca who previously worked alongside Slater at the FTC.
Democrats pressed Slater at her hearing in February on whether she would take illegal or unethical action at Trump’s behest.
“If confirmed, I will always follow the law, as well as uphold my oath to support and defend the Constitution,” she said after the hearing, while adding she did not anticipate any such request.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Comments