White House sparks antitrust fears as it taps ex-Google lobbyist as DC emissary

The White House has picked a new emissary to Capitol Hill to push its legislative agenda — and Big Tech critics say it looks like bad news for antitrust crackdowns on Silicon Valley.

President Biden this week named Shuwanza Goff as its director of legislative affairs.

While press coverage noted she is the first black woman to hold the key role, most reports didn’t note she recently worked at Cornerstone: Google’s largest outside lobbying group.

Goff was never officially employed by Google, but the search giant spends $680,000 with Cornerstone annually, making Google the firm’s biggest client, according to Open Secrets.

Running the office of Legislative Affairs is a little known role with outsized influence — the job is to communicate the president’s priorities and push his agenda with members of Congress.

The last chief, Louisa Terrell, is credited with pushing Republicans and Democrats to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

But political insiders also say she may be part of the reason tech antitrust legislation didn’t pass.

Terrell was a former Meta employee who worked closely with Mark Zuckerberg until 2013. 

At the time, reports surfaced that she seemed to be slow-walking antitrust legislation. Advocacy groups worried over her Big Tech ties asked that she recuse herself from antitrust discussions.

Now, some advocates of antitrust legislation believe choosing Goff is going from bad to worse. 

“It’s concerning to see two successive legislative affairs directors with Big Tech ties. At least Terrell could say she hadn’t worked for Facebook since 2013,” Aiden Buzzetti, president of conservative advocacy group The Bull Moos Project, told On The Money.

“Goff’s bio as a principal at Google’s largest lobbying firm as of yesterday still hasn’t even been scrubbed from their website,” Buzzetti added, “suggesting she has a far fresher perspective of sympathy to a company the Biden administration’s DOJ is currently prosecuting for violating antitrust law.”

“The controversy surrounding Terrell, who once served as Mark Zuckerberg’s personal sherpa to Congress, had been a sticking point for progressive activists and watchdog groups like the Revolving Door Project,” a source told On The Money.

“Her perceived soft-pedaling on advocating for robust antitrust legislation led many to question whether her former tech affiliations colored her tenure in the legislative affairs office.”

Some antitrust advocates are calling on the White House to assign someone else to push antitrust legislation.

“If she follows in Terrell’s footsteps with ties to the Big Tech companies that have been at loggerheads with Biden’s antitrust appointments, Goff needs to present a clear plan as to how Biden can prioritize antitrust legislation with a recused legislative director,” Jeff Hauser, Founder of the Revolving Door Project told On The Money.

“If there is a conflict of interest, the best path forward would be assigning antitrust legislation to a White House official experienced at working the Hill and at least as senior as Goff,” Hauser added.