The attorney helping Vice President Kamala Harris with debate preparation is also defending Google from the antitrust lawsuit brought by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ), which government transparency advocates say presents a conflict of interest.
Karen Dunn, who is helping Harris prepare for Tuesday’s debate against former President Donald Trump, gave the opening statement Monday during Google’s trial. While there is nothing explicitly preventing Dunn from taking on both roles, experts say the campaign’s decision to work with her should raise concern.
“Somebody in the Harris Campaign should google ‘conflict of interest,’” Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Imagine being a DOJ attorney, working on this case in good faith. Your potential future boss is entrusting her campaign to someone who is working for one of DOJ’s most formidable opponent litigants — against you. That’s disheartening.”
Chamberlain noted there is “tremendous potential for abuse with the overlap of the Vice President’s political world and an executive branch agency.”
“Relationships like these ignite howls of outrage when they involve other campaigns,” he said.
The DOJ’s lawsuit threatens to break up the tech giant. Last month, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, held in a 277-page ruling that Google has an illegal monopoly on its search engine.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the ruling a “victory for the American people.”
Biden-Harris Cabinet Secretary Claims ‘Punishing Schedule’ Makes It Impossible For Kamala To Answer Questions pic.twitter.com/CvOExXOsg8
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 9, 2024
“If this is a preview of how a future Harris Administration would handle potential conflicts of interest, it could be great news for progressive special interests,” Pete McGinnis, communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, told the DCNF. “The big losers would be the American public who expect their government to act objectively and without bias from conflicted decision-makers.”
Dunn has helped Democratic candidates in every presidential election since 2008 prepare for debates, according to The New York Times.
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, told the NYT that “you can’t serve both sides.”
“If these were legal cases, she would be ethically barred from doing what she’s doing,” Stoller said.
Stoller told the DCNF that there’s no formal ethics rule restricting Dunn because “the Harris campaign is a political campaign, not a lawsuit.”
While Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, told the DCNF he sees the “theoretical conflict,” he also explained that “helping with debate prep is a way of volunteering for a campaign.”
“Lots of people and organizations both volunteer for campaigns and provide financial backing to campaigns that have business before the federal government,” Painter said.
The Trump campaign called Harris out over the potential conflict in August.
“Kamala Harris will never stand up to Big Tech because she’s being coached on what to say in the debates by Google’s top lawyer,” Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh told Fox News. “Think about how outrageous it is — their administration is suing Google, but Harris is taking political advice from the defendant’s lawyer.”
The debate between Harris and Trump, which will take place at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday on ABC News.
The Harris campaign and Dunn did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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