# Jonathan Kanter Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from November 2021 (confirmed 68–29) to late 2024. With [[Lina Khan]] at the [[FTC]], it was the first time since [[Thurman Arnold]] that both federal enforcement agencies were run by lawyers who rejected the prevailing doctrine rather than administered it. He was a plaintiff-side litigator before taking the job and had represented rivals against Google for years, which prompted recusal fights that never succeeded. ## The docket he filed His tenure produced a set of cases that the next administration inherited: - the litigated [[United States v. Google]] search trial (liability won August 2024); - the ad tech case (liability won April 2025); - [[United States v. Apple]] (March 2024); - the [[Live Nation Antitrust Case]] (May 2024); - the RealPage algorithmic-pricing case (August 2024); - the JetBlue/Spirit block (January 2024). His most durable output is the **2023 [[Merger Guidelines]]**, co-issued with the FTC on December 18, 2023. The incoming Republican FTC kept them in force in February 2025. He also revived criminal prosecution under Sherman Act §2 and pushed labor-market theories of harm, including no-poach and wage-fixing cases. ## What happened to it Kanter's stated position was that the agencies should **litigate rather than settle**. The 2025–26 Division reversed that in practice. - **Live Nation.** DOJ settled mid-trial in March 2026 for $280 million and behavioral terms, with no Ticketmaster divestiture. **Thirty-three states and D.C. refused the deal and won a jury verdict on every claim on April 15, 2026.** - **The Division's leadership.** Assistant Attorney General [[Gail Slater]], who had kept several of his cases alive, resigned abruptly on February 12, 2026, weeks before that trial. Senators pointed to a Live Nation lobbyist who had publicly urged her firing. - **Google.** Liability held, but the remedies produced no structural relief in either case: no Chrome divestiture in September 2025, no AdX divestiture in September 2026 (see [[United States v. Google]]). Kanter's theory of enforcement survived where it had a litigant willing to take a verdict. After the federal settlement, that litigant was the state attorneys general. He now comments publicly as a former AAG, for example arguing in September 2026 that AI companies do not need antitrust exemptions. ## See Also - [[US Antitrust and Monopoly Timeline]] · [[Antitrust Division]] · [[New Brandeis Movement]] - [[Lina Khan]] · [[Gail Slater]] · [[Merger Guidelines]] - [[United States v. Google]] · [[United States v. Apple]] · [[Live Nation Antitrust Case]]