President Trump Chooses Next Antitrust Chief for Justice Dept.

Apparently, President Trump plans to nominate a tech critic and telecommunications lawyer, Adam Candeub, to lead the antitrust division at the Department of Justice. Candeub, the general counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, was an author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a road map of policy conservative proposals created for the Trump administration. In his chapter for Project 2025 on the FTC, Candeub criticized big tech companies for impeding free speech online, listing “the interference of large internet firms with democratic political discourse” among the practices that “undermine liberal democracy.” He has also written papers calling for changes to Section 230, a federal legal shield that has protected internet companies from being sued for content they host. Candeub has served in both Trump administrations, first as a deputy assistant secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a division of the Commerce Department. The White House is expected to announce the nomination in the coming days. If confirmed by the Senate, Candeub would inherit a division that has faced mounting tension over its pullback on major lawsuits against prominent companies.