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Trump Risks Politicizing Antitrust With Order on Tech Firms

  • Executive order is in preliminary stages at White House
  • Yelp executive sent order to White House, denies writing it
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Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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President Donald Trump risks politicizing antitrust enforcement and violating the First Amendment should he sign a draft executive order targeting social media companies that’s under consideration at the White House.

The order, first reported Friday by Bloomberg News, instructs federal antitrust agencies to open probes into the practices of tech giants like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. That would challenge the traditional independence of the Justice Department even if investigations were warranted, several antitrust experts said.