Former President Donald Trump threatened on Friday that he will request the criminal prosecution of Google “at maximum levels” when he returns to office, accusing the tech giant of “illegal activity” through its bias against him in search results.
In a post on Truth Social, the former president claimed that Google “has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump” while simultaneously “only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris.”
The post continues, “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!”
Trump’s vow to prosecute Google is likely based on many examples of election interference that have been revealed in the runup to the 2024 election. Most recently a Media Research Center (MRC) study demonstrated that the search giant is “padding” its results in favor of Kamala Harris:
In the past, Google buried the campaign websites of Republican candidates. Now the search giant very clearly pads its search results about political candidates with leftist legacy news articles, many of which are hostile to Republicans and either neutral or favorable toward Democrats. Readers will have to sift through the biased news before they even see the organic results of their searches, let alone a candidate’s website.
MRC Free Speech America researchers conducted searches on Sept. 6 for “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024” to determine where Google Search would position each candidate’s presidential campaign website. In both searches, news from leftist-biased legacy outlets like CNN and The New York Times populated the top of the search results.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign website appeared sixth in search results for “donald trump presidential race 2024.” But before reaching Trump’s website, readers would see options to click on seven articles from left-wing sources. The New York Times, Politico and The Washington Post were listed under the “Top Stories” panel.
In June, an earlier MRC study revealed that Google was burying Donald Trump’s campaign site while pushing Joe Biden’s site to the top of searches while he was still in the race:
The MRC’s research, conducted just days before tonight’s highly anticipated presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, revealed stark differences in how Google presents search results for various candidates. When searching for a candidate’s name along with “presidential race 2024,” researchers found that President Biden’s campaign website appeared as the top result, while former President Trump’s website was notably absent from the first page of results.
This discrepancy has led to accusations of election interference. MRC President Brent Bozell stated, “Google is blatantly interfering in the 2024 election.” The organization’s findings suggest that the issue extends beyond just these two candidates, with pro-life candidates seemingly receiving less favorable treatment in search rankings.
Google also censored search results related to the assassination attempt at Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The internet giant attempted to play this censorship off as an innocent mistake:
The primary point of contention centered around searches related to the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Breitbart News previously reported that users noted that when typing “assassination attempt on” into Google’s search bar, the auto-complete function did not suggest the recent incident involving Trump. Instead, it offered suggestions related to historical figures such as former President Ronald Reagan and musician Bob Marley.
In response to these allegations, a Google spokesperson provided clarification to Fortune magazine. The company stated that no “manual action” was taken on the auto-complete predictions and that they are “working on improvements” to the feature. Regarding the absence of suggestions related to the assassination attempt, Google explained that their systems have “protections against Auto-complete predictions associated with political violence,” which were functioning as intended prior to the recent event.
Breitbart News will continue to report on Google’s election interference and Donald Trump’s response to it.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.