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Published September 29, 2023, 6:16 p.m. ET
The Obama-appointed federal judge overseeing the landmark antitrust case against Google is under fire for allowing the search giant to seal much of the testimony, a significant departure from his open courtroom policy when he heard cases related to the Capitol riots on January 6th.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta has given in to demands from Google and executives from other tech titans – including Apple and Microsoft – to exclude the public from hearing testimony in the early weeks of the trial that was deemed too sensitive.
But Judge Mehta took a very different approach before sentencing Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes to an 18-year prison sentence and handing a second Oath Keeper defendant, Kelly Meggs, a 12-year prison sentence.
During the trial between Rhodes and Meggs, he allowed embarrassing details about both defendants’ personal lives to be released – including the unsealing of Rhodes’ 2018 divorce filing from his wife Tasha Adams, which revealed the extremist group leader’s problematic tendencies.
Judge Amit P. Mehta will have sole responsibility for deciding whether Google violated the law in its effort to maintain its market dominance. There will be no jury.Portal
Judge Mehta, who was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2014, also rejected former President Donald Trump’s attempt to dismiss civil suits for inciting the riots, laying out the reasons for his decision in a 112-page ruling.
“This is becoming overly political in my opinion,” said Joel Thayer, a lawyer for two organizations that filed a motion Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., to make all evidence about Google’s relationship with Apple, as well as the testimony of top Apple executive Eddy Cue, publicly available close.
Mehta denied Thayer’s request Friday.
“You are prepared to open the door to your courtroom on January 6th and tell us every detail about these people, but we are not allowed to know anything about Google – a publicly traded company that manages all of our information? Shortly before an important election? It’s absolutely absurd,” Thayer told The Post.
Conservative groups filed a motion Thursday in federal court in Washington to make publicly available all evidence of Google’s relationship with Apple, as well as the testimony of top Apple executive Eddy Cue. The request was rejected.Getty Images
In particular, Thayer criticized Judge Mehta for allowing Google to either completely seal or heavily redact much of the evidence submitted in its court filing.
“Public court documents allow people to understand how the law works. If the judge makes serious decisions on key points in the litigation, we should know why,” said Thayer, who represents the conservative nonprofit groups American Principles Project and Center for Renewing America.
“How far does this go? Does that mean Google has a higher right to privacy than any other lawsuit before this judge?”
The Justice Department has accused Google of paying $10 billion a year to wireless carriers and smartphone makers to ensure that Google Search is turned on by default on their devices. The government argues that Google abused its search monopoly and some aspects of search advertising.
Judge Mehta has reportedly pleaded ignorance by allowing Google’s lawyers to dictate when to kick media and the public out of his courtroom, while seeking advice from U.S. prosecutors.
So far, Mehta has primarily presided over trials related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection, in which, among other things, Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for leading the extremist group Oath Keepers in the attack on the US Capitol. AP Thayer criticized Mehta for allowing open courtrooms during his Jan. 6 trials, but without the involvement of Google — “a public company that manages all of our information,” the lawyer told AP
“I rely largely on the plaintiffs, who represent the public interest, to let me know if they consider it objectionable to participate in a closed hearing,” Mehta said near the end of the trial on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“I am not someone who understands the industry and the markets as well as you. And that’s why I take it seriously when companies tell me that disclosure would harm competition.”
According to The Journal, Judge Mehta said he didn’t have a crystal ball to know what to expect in the deposition and was therefore unsure whether witnesses would discuss confidential business matters.
“Be [Mehta’s] “The view that this issue of sealed documents is not his responsibility but the responsibility of the parties is absurd,” Thayer told The Post.
“That’s primarily the judge’s decision – whether or not to seek sealing,” said Thayer, whose law firm, Thayer PLLC, focuses on antitrust issues.
David Dahlquist, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, reiterated: “At times we have not objected to the closure when third parties and Google have raised it. We just want to make this public.”
“The push for much of this sealed evidence comes from Apple, Microsoft and DuckDuckGo because they are not being sued by the government and therefore do not believe their information needs to be public,” a person familiar with the matter told The Post on Friday.
A spokesperson for DuckDuckGo scoffed at this claim.
“It is literally impossible for us to be the reason for ‘much of the secrecy’ and what the source said makes no factual sense,” the spokesman said. “We don’t have special access to what the vast majority of the case is about, we learn about it just like everyone else as it plays out in public.
The Justice Department has alleged that Google paid billions of dollars each year to smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung to ensure that its search engine came pre-installed in their web browsers by default.AP
Google, Apple and Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.
Thayer pointed out that the government did not fight harder to keep the testimony in court because the federal agency did not have sufficient resources.
“There are only six or seven DOJ officials working on it. You’re dealing with more than a few hundred lawyers on Google’s side,” he said.
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