More Trump Administrators

Joshua Wright, the former GOP commissioner at the FTC, [has] been advising the [Trump transition] team on related matters, according to a source familiar with effort. Wright  [...]  comes to the transition as executive director of the Global Antitrust Institute at George Mason University, which he rejoined in 2015 after serving at the FTC during the Obama administration.

  Politico Morning Tech

Joshua Wright has been put in charge of transition efforts at the influential Federal Trade Commission after pulling off the rare revolving-door quadruple-play, moving from Google-supported academic work to government – as an FTC commissioner – back to the Google gravy train and now back to the government.

[...]

Wright’s leadership position in the Trump FTC transition flips him back into government work. The FTC has two open seats on its five-member panel, and Chair Edith Ramirez’s term ends in April 2017. So Trump will be able to remake the agency, which has responsibilities over consumer protection and policing anti-competitive business practices, like the employing of monopoly power. Outside of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, no government agency is more responsible for competition policy than the FTC.

[...]

Google is currently facing antitrust allegations in Europe. In May, Politico reported that the FTC planned to take a second look at Google’s search bias, three years after they closed an investigation, despite reported recommendations to prosecute from agency staff. Having someone on the Google payroll twice doing hiring for the new Administration may halt any new investigation at the FTC.

  The Intercept

In other words–it sure looks like Joshua Wright is exactly the kind of swamp dweller that one would have expected Mr. Trump to avoid.

Don’t tell me there’s a silver lining because Google will not have as much access to the White House as they’re used to under Obama. It may not be quite so cozy as it was, but it’s starting to look like Google really is part of the deep state.

  MTP

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.