Biden’s New Antitrust Cop Threatens to Slam Brakes on Mergers

  • Jonathan Kanter aims to reverse decades of lax enforcement
  • Google has pressed DoJ to examine whether he should be recused
Jonathan Kanter in his office at the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters.Photographer: Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg
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To understand how the Justice Department’s new antitrust chief, Jonathan Kanter, is thinking about his job, take a look around his office.

On one wall hangs a painting of the prosecutor who brought the case that crushed John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly. There’s also a picture of a bison with the words “Ass Kicking Is On My Mind.” And then there are the historic posters from an earlier trustbusting era.