Former Republican member of Congress Susan Molinari, who will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president during the Democratic National Convention, has been known as “Google’s Washington insider,” a key lobbyist for the tech giant.
Molinari was revealed as one of three Republicans on the convention schedule. The other two are well-known “Never Trump” figures: failed California candidate for governor Meg Whitman, and former New Jersey Governor Chrstine Todd Whitman. Both opposed Trump in 2016, with Gov. Whitman comparing the president to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
In 2013, the New York Times described Molinari’s work on Capitol Hill for Google. Her job was to court Republicans and stop “scrutiny of Google as a behemoth monopoly that reaches far into people’s personal lives.” She also lobbied for more permissive immigration laws to suit Google’s commercial interests, among other priorities.
The Times reported:
A brassy, well-connected New York Republican who served seven years in the House, Ms. Molinari is paid handsomely to broaden the tech giant’s support beyond Silicon Valley Democrats and to lavish money and attention on selected Republicans. (Google employees gave 90 percent of their political donations to President Obama last year.)
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To fight off the now constant scrutiny of Google as a behemoth monopoly that reaches far into people’s personal lives, Ms. Molinari has aggressively courted lawmakers and federal regulators as she has managed a Google effort that spent a record $18.2 million on lobbying in 2012.
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Ms. Molinari worked with Google’s lawyers this year to help fend off an antitrust lawsuit after a two-year investigation of the company by the Federal Trade Commission; began navigating another F.T.C. antitrust inquiry into Google’s practices only last week; and continues to spend hours pushing the company’s case in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill.
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In addition to lobbying on immigration, Ms. Molinari is also pressing Congress to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, to make it harder for law enforcement to gain access to e-mails, and to pass legislation that would stymie the power of “patent trolls,” companies that buy and stockpile patents — and then sue companies like Google to protect them.
Google executives were caught on video after the 2016 election vowing to stop Trump in 2020 and make the movement that elected him a “blip” in history. Google has also suppressed search traffic to conservative media, including Breitbart.
Update: A Google representative contacted Breitbart to indicate that Molinari left the company in 2019.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.