Conservative tech critic seen as leading candidate to be DOJ antitrust chief

The leading candidate to oversee the Justice Department's antimonopoly enforcement has been a critic of the tech sector and is a government lawyer who led an effort to crack down on social media companies during President Trump's first term.

Adam Candeub is being considered for assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. He currently serves as the Federal Communications Commission's general counsel, working for Chairman Brendan Carr.

Candeub did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Omeed Assefi, the acting assistant attorney general for antitrust, who oversaw a controversial settlement with concert and ticket giant Live Nation, is departing next month. He had long planned to exit in June, when his first child is due.

Senior Trump administration officials are still considering candidates to take on the crucial role of DOJ antitrust chief, a position that oversees mergers and acquisitions and protects against price fixing.

Candeub was previously a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank founded by Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Others who have been interviewed for the post in recent weeks include Mike Murray, a former Justice Department lawyer who co-chairs the antitrust practice at Paul Hastings LLP, and Adam Cella, a lawyer who works for House Republicans, some of the sources said.

A final decision had not been made. A White House spokeswoman said there were no personnel announcements at this time.

Whoever is chosen will be in charge of reviewing highly consequential mergers, including the pending merger between Warner Bros. and Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News.

Assefi ascended to the acting assistant attorney general role after his predecessor, Gail Slater, was terminated in February after a series of clashes with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and their team.

Assefi at the time had told White House counsel David Warrington and others that he would leave in June for family reasons.

"Omeed Assefi has been a valuable leader in our Antitrust Division, and we are grateful for his time serving the nation," a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

In an interview with CBS News shortly after accepting the temporary post, Assefi said he hoped to focus his time on bringing antitrust enforcement cases that would have a direct impact on the wallets of everyday Americans.

Antitrust hawks have viewed Mr. Trump's second administration as more lenient on corporate mergers, following a series of high-profile settlements.

"The level of settlements has made it quite clear that antitrust is dead during Trump's second term," said Reed Showalter, a former Justice Department counsel on antitrust policy during the Biden administration who is now running for Congress.

About a month after Slater's ouster — as the Justice Department and dozens of states were in the middle of a high-stakes monopoly case against Ticketmaster's parent company Live Nation — the Justice Department announced it had reached a settlement with the company. That came after growing tensions within the administration as Live Nation and other companies hired Trump-allied consultants and lawyers to advocate for settlements.

The Live Nation announcement blindsided many of the states involved in the case, as well as some of the Justice Department's own trial attorneys.

"Ideally, given that staff were most closely connected to the facts and theory about the case, their input and involvement would have been essential to the division's decision-making, especially surrounding such a significant matter to the American people," said a current Justice Department trial attorney who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The negotiating team on the Live Nation case was separate from the trial team, sources said.

A coalition of 30 states decided not to sign on to the settlement and chose to proceed with the trial. In April, a New York federal judge handed them a victory, finding that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit had operated as an illegal monopoly.