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President Trump to Nominate Adam Candeub for Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that President Trump has decided to nominate Adam Candeub, the current General Counsel of the FCC, to be the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. The daily administration of the Antitrust Division has recently fallen to Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the Department’s third in command, since Omeed Assefi's reported departure this month. It has been a tumultuous seventeen months at the Division, which has seen Assefi serve as the acting head, only to give way to Gail Slater who resigned earlier this year, then to Assefi again, then to Woodward, and now to Candeub.
Candeub, in many ways, is cut from the same philosophical cloth as Slater and Assefi. He is a skeptic of “Big Tech,” having testified in front of the Senate where he gave a tepid endorsement of the American Innovation and Choice Act- the central bipartisan effort to rein in the market power of select technology firms. Interestingly, his criticism of the legislation was that it was not strong enough and lacked a private right of action- not a typical viewpoint for a Republican.
His criticism of technology, writings at Michigan State (where he was a professor of law), and actions during his brief stint as NTIA administrator show that skepticism. In 2020, Justice Thomas favorably cited one of his articles in arguing that large technology platforms might need to be regulated as utilities in order to bring about societal goals around access, free speech, and privacy. During his time at NTIA, he spearheaded an attempt to tighten regulations on when and how platforms could claim protections under Section 230- the hotly debated portion of the Communications Decency Act which has provided a liability shield for internet companies from the smallest chat room to YouTube and Instagram.
He also wrote the FTC section of Project 2025, articulating a vision of antitrust enforcement that explicitly looks at broader equities than just price effects. He shares that view with FTC Chair Ferguson, Commissioner Mark Meador, and former AAGs Slater and Assefi. The question is whether or not he will be given the space to carry it out.
On the same day his nomination was reported, the Wall Street Journal reported that Associate AG Woodward has ordered antitrust staff to avoid litigation. It is fair to ask if the Department has been ordered not to enforce, what does that do to enforcement? This would be a dramatic heal turn for an Administration which came in promising vigorous enforcement and appointed serious enforcers to do it.
Candeub has a long and articulated record of carrying on the populist antitrust philosophy of Republicans like Vice-President Vance. But so did Slater and Assefi.
The final thing to weigh in any discussion of any appointment is the political schedule. The Senate is quickly running out of time to hold hearings and schedule a floor vote for any nominee. Currently, the confirmation hearings for Acting Attorney General Blanche have yet to be scheduled. With a compressed schedule this summer and fall, finding time for the nomination could be a challenge, as could the fraying relationships between the White House and the Senate Republican caucus. A quick confirmation of Candeub is unlikely. Unless the Administration can implement a workaround (like detailing him from the FCC until a hearing), the Division will most likely continue to be overseen by Woodward through the summer and perhaps through the fall and into the holidays.