Nearly a year ago, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on the search engine market.

It was a decision that sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and Washington.

  • enkers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    261·
    2 days ago

    I think you’ve got keep in mind that the cogs of the justice system turn slowly.

    This is the district level damages decision which will finalize a ruling that was made nearly a year ago. After that, it can be appealed which can be heard by the circuit courts, and then finally the Supreme court, which is ostensibly where Trump has the most sway.

    If there’s no play here, it’s because it still hasn’t got far enough through the system for him to want to interfere at this point.

    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Trump could get the case dropped right now though if he wanted to, right? Or is it too far along at the lower level for that to be an option?

      • enkers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I mean… maybe? Could an EO be used to just dismiss an existing case? Maybe. It’s kinda make believe land over there right now, so it’s hard to say what is and isn’t in the realm of possibility.

        And I don’t know the legal system well enough to say for sure how he could go about it. Presumably some bureaucracy would have to be intervened in to stop the case from proceeding normally. Whether or not he could do that legally seems to be a bit contentious:

        https://hls.harvard.edu/today/what-power-does-the-president-have-over-the-federal-bureaucracy/

        However, there’s also the question of could he just have some cronies walk in to the place with a bunch of dudes in black suits and do it anyways? I think the DoJ would be pretty pissed if he tried that, but he’s already been flirting with contempt of court and we haven’t seen any judge pull the trigger on that yet, so we’ll see, I guess.

        There’s also the fact that nobody’s given him incentive to do it yet. They’ll probably wait and see, as Trump would likely need a sizeable reason to step in, so why pay potentially more on Trump whithout knowing what the damages will even be, right?