Kamala Harris’s surprise opportunity

It’s rare that a presidential candidate is delivered an opportunity on a platter to enunciate what she’s for and against.

But Kamala Harris has now been delivered one — and it’s a silver platter, no less.

First, some background. Yesterday, in a stunner of a decision, Judge Amit Mehta of the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search.

The U.S. government had accused Google of illegally cementing its dominance in search, partly by paying other companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to have Google automatically handle search queries on their smartphones and web browsers.

Judge Mehta agreed. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” he ruled.

The ruling is a bombshell that will affect all other government antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech. And there are many under the Biden-Harris administration.

One of the major lawsuits underway is against Amazon. Last September, the FTC sued Amazon — alleging that it uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain its monopoly power. The FTC said Amazon stopped rivals and sellers from lowering prices, overcharged sellers, and stifled innovation.

The FTC is also suing Meta, accusing it of creating a monopoly in social media by buying potential competitors Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is also challenging Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard and is investigating Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI. The FTC has reportedly opened multiple investigations involving subsidiaries of Barry Diller’s AIC.

The chair of the FTC is Lina Khan — perhaps the most effective FTC chair since Michael Pertschuk ran the agency in the late 1970s. (Full disclosure: I ran the policy staff at the FTC under Pertschuk.)

Khan’s FTC shares antitrust jurisdiction with the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, which brought the suit against Google. As part of the Justice Department, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, is shielded from the wrath of Big Tech.

So, billionaire Democratic donors are targeting Khan — and doing so publicly.

It’s rare that major donors make the quid pro quo’s they want for their donations known publicly instead of doing so quietly through campaign bigwigs and senior White House staff.

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has so far donated $7 million to the leading pro-Biden and Harris super PAC, spoke to CNN about his concerns about Khan. He said that if Harris wins in November, she should replace Khan: “Lina Khan is … a person who is not helping America,” Hoffman said, adding, “I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.” (He later clarified that he would support Harris regardless of whether she replaces Khan.)

Why is Hoffman so negative about Khan? Presumably, because Hoffman sits on the board of Microsoft.

Another billionaire Democratic mega-donor, Barry Diller, chairman of AIC and Expedia, announced he would “donate the maximum” to the Harris campaign.

But Diller is openly urging Harris to remove Khan. Diller charges that Khan is against “almost anything” business wants to do to grow efficiently. Asked if he would join others in lobbying Harris to replace Khan, he said, “Yeah, I would. I think she’s a dope.” (He later apologized for calling Khan a dope, but not for critiquing her policies.)

Diller is upset with Khan because she’s investigating several AIC subsidiaries.

All this provides a surprising opportunity for Kamala because it’s all out in the open — Hoffman’s and Diller’s donations, their requests that Harris get rid of Khan, and their personal financial interests in her doing so.

Here’s what I recommend Harris do: Openly tell Hoffman and Diller she thinks Khan is doing a great job and wants her to stay at the FTC — and if they don’t like it, they can keep their money.

Maybe Harris can find a way to fit this message into her acceptance of the nomination at the Democratic National Convention: “I’m not going to allow Big Tech to dictate public policy! No more big money in politics!”

With this one gesture, Harris would shut the door to billionaire quid pro quos and demonstrate her independence from Big Tech’s big money.

Can Harris afford to do this? I think so, especially given her surge of support from small donors. If she did this, I suspect her small-donor support would explode even more.

It would also be good for America if Harris shut this door. Big money, especially from Big Tech, is the second-biggest threat to American democracy — after Donald Trump.