Donald Trump said Friday he will ‘request the prosecution’ of Google – part of one of the world’s largest companies – when he is back in office, complaining that it is only putting up ‘bad stories’ about him.
Trump, who has long railed against Big Tech, posted the threat on his Truth Social site, where he also accused the country of promoting only positive stories about rival Kamala Harris.
He offered no further evidence to back up his claims.
‘It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,’ Trump wrote.
‘This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections. If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!’
Although the Justice Department falls within the executive branch, decisions on whether to prosecute corporations for alleged criminal activity are usually left to career prosecutors.
On a roll: Donald Trump accused Google of only ‘displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump’ and called for the company to face criminal prosecution
Trump ally Elon Musk, who is backing his effort finally and boosted him with an interview on his X platform, accused Google of imposing a search ban on Trump after the July assassination attempt.
Musk penned a post with an image of a search box for ‘President Donald.’ The results, offered by an autocomplete function, yielded ‘Donald Duck’ and ‘President Donald Regan,’ but not Trump. The firm called it an anomaly.
‘Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?’ wrote Musk.
The autocomplete function currently yields Trump’s name.
Google, which accounts for most of parent company Alphabet’s revenue, has denied manipulating its search results to help any political candidate.
‘Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries. This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day a few weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates’ websites ranked in the top results on Google,’ it said in a statement.
Donald Trump said the company ‘has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump’ on a day when he tore into rival Kamala Harris during a Michigan rally
Google has denied manipulating its search to help a candidate
Trump’s threat to go after Google follows another threat earlier this month to prosecute people who ‘cheated’ or engaged in ‘unscrupulous behavior’ in the November elections.
He accused Democrats of ‘rampant Cheating and Skullduggery’ and warned, ‘when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’
His vows to prosecute rivals or companies perceived as working against him come in a race where Trump’s Democratic rivals have flagged his comments justifying ‘revenge’ and calling for retribution against political opponents.
Trump has also repeatedly railed against the federal, state and local prosecutors who have targeted him. If elected, he would have the authority to shut down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of him related to January 6th.
Trump’s post comes a week after the New York Times posted on a series of Trump efforts to seek federal prosecutions or investigations of political rivals ranging from former FBI Director James Comey to former Secretary of State John Kerry.
