The Senate on Tuesday approved President Gale Slater, the candidate for President Trump, who leads the Department of Justice's anti-trust division, by a 78-19 vote.
A veteran tech and media lawyer, Slater has pledged to be skeptical of the corporate power of the economy as a whole and is particularly critical of the power of the tech industry.
At her confirmation hearing, she expressed concern about the advantages of several online platforms, adding that someone could “have to disappear from the internet very easily.”
Her confirmation comes as Wall Street and Silicon Valley Watch to see if the Trump administration continues to actively scrutinize the corporate America pursued under former President Joseph R. Biden.
Slater has inherited two Department of Justice antitrust lawsuits against Google. The first filed in 2020 under the first Trump administration is a groundbreaking case last year when a judge determined Google was the search monopoly. The judge is still considering the second case where Google claims that Google's management of AD technology is rebuttal.
On Friday, the Justice Department continued its aggressive approach to Google's search cases, repeating repeated requests from the Biden era, requiring the courts to let the company sell its popular Chrome browser. The judge in that case is scheduled for April to hear debate from both sides about how to fix the issue.
The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit last year against Apple claiming that its closely woven systems of devices and software make it difficult for consumers to leave.
Slater is a longtime Washington lawyer who previously worked for the Internet Association, a shutter group representing major technology companies such as Google and Meta, and is Roku and Fox Corp.
