By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice’s blockbuster antitrust litigation against Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google told a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that resources will be a factor in pursuing the cases.
Gail Slater, a veteran antitrust attorney and economic adviser to Vice President JD Vance, would lead the DOJ division that enforces laws against illegal monopolies and anticompetitive business behavior, if confirmed as assistant attorney general of the antitrust division.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who leads the antitrust subcommittee, asked Slater about her commitment to continuing antitrust enforcement against Big Tech, which began during Trump’s first term, and continued under former President Joe Biden.
Slater said she would work to get up to speed on the DOJ’s cases, while noting that they take a large amount of resources to pursue.
"Resources are of course a very important consideration in antitrust litigation, in taking cases further. It is very complex civil litigation and costly so that will be a consideration," Slater said.
If confirmed, Slater said she would advocate for adequate resources for the division.
The DOJ sued Google for allegedly dominating online advertising technology markets, and won a landmark ruling in another case that found Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search. Along with state attorneys general, the DOJ has also accused Apple, LiveNation and Visa (NYSE:V) of maintaining illegal monopolies.
Slater said at the hearing that she is committed to continuing to work with both Republican and Democratic state attorneys general.
Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey who is the ranking member on the Senate’s antitrust committee, expressed concern ahead of the hearing about how efforts by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk to shrink the federal workforce would affect the antitrust division’s work.
"Any efforts by Musk and Trump to fire or push out federal employees charged with enforcing our antitrust laws will hurt Americans at a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, pay their rents and mortgages, and buy groceries," Booker said.
Slater has worked at Fox Corp (NASDAQ:FOXA) and Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), and represented Big Tech companies at a now-defunct trade group called the Internet Association. She began her career at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and spent 10 years at the Federal Trade Commission.