Given its focus on rolling back regulations, the Trump administration has shown a curious soft spot for antitrust enforcement.

First there was the Justice Department's (unsuccessful) challenge to the vertical merger of AT&T and Time Warner—which definitely, nope, no way had nothing to do the president's open dislike of Time Warner subsidiary CNN.

Now, Bloomberg on Saturday reported that the White House is considering a draft executive order that would direct antitrust authorities to probe Google, Facebook and other social media companies.

In August, the president tweeted that “Google search results for 'Trump News' shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD.”

“Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices,” Trump continued. “Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won't let that happen.”

Jenna GreeneSetting aside the irony that he was using a social media platform to complain to his 54.6 million followers that social media is stifling conservatives, what exactly does the administration think should be done?

Bloomberg obtained a draft of the social media antitrust document, which calls for law enforcers to “thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws.” Per Bloomberg, it also “instructs other government agencies to recommend within a month after it's signed, actions that could potentially 'protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.'”

The exercise of bias hasn't really been a factor in assessing consumer harm in antitrust enforcement because, oh I don't know, the First Amendment. Antitrust is about protecting competition and consumers. It's not supposed to be about policing speech.

There are certainly legitimate antitrust concerns about the market power of behemoths like Google and Facebook and whether they constrain innovation or foreclose competition–even though most of their products are free. But to wrap concerns about alleged bias against conservatives into an antitrust probe seems… problematic.

A White House official told Bloomberg that the document “was in its early stages and hasn't been run past other government agencies.”

On Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will meet with a bipartisan group of 24 state attorneys general to discuss social media platforms, including privacy concerns, state-level cases and complaints about suppressing conservative voices.

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An Outrage in Alaska

Remember Aaron Persky? The California judge who sentenced Stanford swimmer Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexual assault and was subsequently recalled by outraged voters who felt the sentence was far too light?

Alaska state court Judge Michael Corey just did the judicial equivalent of 'Hold my beer.'

Last week, Corey accepted a plea deal from a 34-year-old man who was charged with kidnapping a woman, choking her until she became unconscious and then masturbating on her.

The 25-year-old woman accepted a ride from Justin Schneider, who ”violently grabbed her neck in a front choke hold with both hands and told her if she screamed, he'd kill her,” according to the Anchorage Daily News, quoting the detective's affidavit

When she regained consciousness, Schneider was zipping up his pants and handed her a tissue. He “told her that he wasn't really going to kill her, that he needed her to believe she was going to die so that he could be sexually fulfilled,” the affidavit stated.

Schneider pleaded guilty to a single felony assault charge, and was sentenced to two years, with one year suspended. And since he spent the past year at home with his wife and kids (eek!) wearing an ankle monitor and has enrolled in a treatment program, he gets no jail time at all, unless he violates his probation.

“This can never happen again,” the judge said sternly, which is also the kind of thing you say when your teenager misses curfew.

The prosecutor, Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Andrew Grannik, didn't exactly distinguish himself either.

“I would like the gentleman to be on notice that that is his one pass. It's not really a pass, but given the conduct, one might consider that it is,” he said in court.

[burying head in my hands]

The DA's office described the deal as “the best we could achieve,” which is a sad commentary on the prowess of prosecutors in Anchorage.

The victim, who is described as an Alaska Native woman, said she didn't know the man and that nothing else about their encounter involved drugs, sex or money—she just needed a ride to her boyfriend's house.

According to KTVA in Anchorage, Schneider at his sentencing offered her no apology and expressed no remorse—he just said he was “grateful” that he had “a year to really work on myself and become a better person.”

Already, a movement is underway to oust Corey, who appears on the local ballot in November in a retention vote.

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Judicial Watch Targets Trump—Sort Of

Judicial Watch is being an equal opportunity pain in the neck, at least when it comes to presidential travel expenses.

The conservative watchdog on Friday filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, seeking information from the Secret Service about President Trump's travel expenses from December 22, 2017 to April 28, 2018.

During the Obama administration, Judicial Watch filed a series of successful FOIA suits about the cost of presidential travel, uncovering a total of $114,691,322.17 in expenses for President Obama.

“Taxpayers should be incensed that the Secret Service's resources [are] wasted to provide security for endless golf excursions, political fundraisers, and luxury vacations,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in 2016. “President Obama's travel is a scandal. It's about his abuse of the office and his abuse of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.”

While Judicial Watch is also suing to get Trump's travel records, the sense of outrage is absent.

The watchdog has already documented $17.2 million in Trump's travel expenses in 2017—a number which does not include his lengthy Christmas trip to Mar-a-Lago. Obama's spending averaged out to $14.3 million a year.

But Fritton now blames the government along with the president for the tab. “Presidential travel is too expensive, and, in particular, taxpayers subsidize too much of the bill for presidential campaign travel,” he said. “President Trump would do well to reform and demand a better, less expensive way to move him around the country.”

Writing for The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer on Sunday evening reported on an allegation from a woman who attended Yale with Kavanaugh and said he “had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent.”

“My role will likely require me to appear publicly on Dr. Ford's behalf, and the Senate is being advised of my involvement this afternoon. Because objections have been raised within the partnership to my doing so while employed by the firm, I am resigning from [Robbins, Russell], effective immediately.”

Bad news for Microsoft and its counsel from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe—the Ninth Circuit granted interlocutory review after the lower court judge denied class cert in the gender discrimination suit.

By imposing aggressive quotas on the judges, the new regime will endanger judges' jobs and immigrants' due process rights, the head of the judges' union said.

“Secretary Ross must sit for a deposition because, among other things, his intent and credibility are directly at issue in these cases.”

Yahoo, now called Altaba Inc., said in a Sept. 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had set aside $47 million in additional expenses to help pay for class actions related to the breach.

In the newest edition of ALM's Legal Speak podcast, Faith Gay says she is determined to create a “new civilization in law.” But what does that mean?