With help from Leah Nylen and John Hendel

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Quick Fix

— Competition case a-comin’: On the tail end of a stretch of antitrust lawsuits against Facebook and Google, the search giant could face a second offensive as soon as this week.

— Names to know: The FTC and states’ twin Facebook antitrust suits have been assigned to two different judges — both of whom are Obama appointees with little antitrust experience. Could the cases be consolidated before one judge?

— Eleventh-hour appointment: A Commerce Department leader who has helped President Donald Trump execute his social media crackdown will assume a top role at the Justice Department today — which could up the pressure on the tech giants during the final weeks of Trump’s presidency.

IT’S MONDAY. WELCOME BACK TO MORNING TECH! I’m your host, Alexandra Levine.

Got a news tip? Write me at [email protected], and follow @Ali_Lev on Twitter and @alexandra.levine on Instagram. An event for our calendar? Send details to [email protected]. Anything else? Team info below. And don't forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.

Tech of the Town

STATES’ GOOGLE SUIT LOOMS, THE LATEST ANTITRUST BATTLE OF MANY — ‘Tis clearly the season for antitrust lawsuits. First came the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Google (the Justice Department and Republican-led states took issue with the company’s power over online search). Then came twin suits against Facebook from the FTC and state attorneys general (both cases took issue with the social network’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp). And now, just in time for the holidays, another hammer is about to drop: A multistate coalition, led by Colorado and Nebraska, could file its own lawsuit against Google (also focused on its control over the online search market) as soon as this week.

— Timetable for the Trump administration’s Google challenge: The Justice Department and Google offered a proposed schedule for their antitrust suit, one that would give any state attorneys general interested in joining the case a Jan. 15 deadline. DOJ and Google’s lawyers didn’t suggest a potential trial date, leaving it up to Judge Amit Mehta. But they did say they expect discovery — deposing witnesses and going through documents — to take 465 days. If Mehta accepts that proposal, a trial likely wouldn’t occur until at least early 2022. Mehta has a hearing Friday about the schedule.

GRABBING THE GAVEL: WHO WILL BE FACEBOOK’S JUDGE? — The U.S. District Court for D.C. assigned the Facebook antitrust suits to two different judges on Friday: Judge James E. Boasberg to the state attorneys general’s case, and Judge Christopher Cooper to the FTC’s lawsuit. But the FTC and states are likely to try to consolidate the cases before one judge. (The states’ suit was processed by the court first, and has the lower assigned number, meaning Boasberg will have right of first refusal on whether he wants to oversee the suits, lawyers who practice often in D.C. said.) Both Boasberg and Cooper are Obama appointees with minimal antitrust experience.

— On Boasberg: He has overseen a few Justice Department merger settlements, and after joining the bench took over an antitrust class action case brought by consumers challenging the Whole Foods merger with Wild Oats. That was dismissed after Boasberg declined to let it proceed as a class action.

— On Cooper: He hasn’t overseen antitrust cases brought by DOJ or FTC to date, but he has helmed private suits, including one over Yale Medical School’s admissions practices and another between rival D.C. movie theaters. Cooper was initially assigned to the DOJ’s challenge of the AT&T and Time Warner merger, but he recused himself because his wife, Amy Jeffress, is a partner at Arnold & Porter and the firm was representing AT&T in the suit.

— In addition to the judges, here’s the cast of characters to know in the Facebook fight.

VISA PUSHES FOR SPRING TRIAL IN DOJ CHALLENGE TO PLAID MERGER — Visa told a California court that it can be ready for trial in April 2021 to defend its proposed acquisition of the fintech company Plaid. But the credit card company said it will seek to dismiss the Justice Department’s allegations that the deal is an attempt to extend its monopoly in the debit card market.

— Connecting the dots on Section 2: When DOJ sued Visa over the acquisition last month, prosecutors said the deal amounted to an illegal merger and that Visa was seeking to extend its monopoly — the same novel legal theory the FTC and states used last week to challenge Facebook’s Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. In a court filing Friday, Visa said the monopolization claims don’t have precedent and should be thrown out.

— DOJ’s response: In the same filing, prosecutors said they should be allowed to move forward with both claims, but will need until September 2021 to gather evidence and prepare for trial. Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland will hold a hearing Friday to talk to prosecutors and lawyers for Visa and Plaid about the proposed schedule.

FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE EXECS TO TESTIFY TUESDAY — Policy leaders from Facebook and YouTube will be among the witnesses at a Tuesday Senate Judiciary intellectual property subcommittee hearing on digital piracy, the committee announced Friday night. (Remember: That’s making good on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s commitment during his own appearance before the Senate in November to send a company representative to testify on the topic.) Speaking at the session are Facebook’s head of global intellectual property and trade policy, Probir Mehta, and YouTube’s global director of business public policy, Katherine Oyama, as well as officials from the Recording Industry Association of America, Copyright Alliance and Coalition for Online Accountability.

Transition 2020

PRE-TRANSITION: APPOINTEE WHO LED TRUMP’S TECH CRACKDOWN TAPPED FOR TOP DOJ ROLE — High-ranking Commerce official Adam Candeub, acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, has been named deputy associate attorney general starting today, POLITICO's Cristiano Lima, Leah Nylen and Daniel Lippman report. Candeub helped lead President Trump’s crusade against social media platforms, my colleagues report, and his new DOJ post could elevate Trump’s attacks on the companies in the final stretch of his presidency.

BIDEN TRANSITION ADDS FACEBOOK, GOOGLE EMPLOYEES TO AGENCY TEAMS — My colleague Steven Overly identified several Facebook and Google employees whose names were not included on the original (and very lengthy) list of personnel released in early November but who were quietly added to the transition website's roster of agency review teams around Thanksgiving. Pros can check out the additions here, and as Steven notes, the individuals are still working at the Silicon Valley firms while volunteering with the transition.

BIDEN TRANSITION ADDS DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZER TO FCC REVIEW TEAM — The transition effort added a new member to its FCC review team late last week: Christiana Ho, whose LinkedIn account lists her as most recently being Florida program director for the campaign of President-elect Joe Biden.

— One major thing setting her apart: She doesn’t seem to have any experience in telecom policy. The other FCC landing team members originally named (former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Smitty Smith, Paul de Sa and John Williams) are all Obama-era veterans at the agency. Ho’s roles for the past several years are all in Democratic political organizing, including stints as Nevada organizing director for the presidential bid of now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and at the Democratic National Convention.

— Her name seems to have been added to the transition website around Friday, according to a review of the website archives. The Biden transition didn’t respond to requests for comment on the addition.

AND FINALLY: WHY WE’RE WATCHING CUBA — Whatever Biden does next vis-à-vis Cuba will have big implications for the U.S. tech industry, my colleague Nancy Scola reports.

Transitions

Richard Bernhardt, national spectrum adviser for the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, was elected co-chair of the Wireless Innovation Forum spectrum sharing committee steering group, which he is leading with Google’s chief wireless architect, Preston Marshall.

Silicon Valley Must Reads

Tim says no: "Apple TV was making a show about Gawker. Then Tim Cook found out," The New York Times reports.

Mic drop: “After the U.S. election, key people are leaving Facebook and torching the company in departure notes,” BuzzFeed News reports. (One notable nugget: The company has a tool called the “Hate Bait dashboard,” which “can track content from groups and pages that leads to hateful interactions.”)

Policing extremism: “In India, Facebook fears crackdown on hate groups could backfire on its staff,” WSJ reports.

Quick Downloads

Across the border: Is Canada's digital tax foray a test of Biden's approach to cross-border relations? POLITICO takes a look.

Oracle says so long, farewell, to the Bay Area: “Another Silicon Valley software giant announced Friday it is decamping to Austin, notching a new win for Texas in its ongoing economic and political rivalry with California,” POLITICO’s Katy Murphy reports.

At the president’s desk: This year's defense policy legislation. Trump has pledged to reject the National Defense Authorization Act over disagreements surrounding Section 230, but the timeline for that looming confrontation is unclear. Here’s the latest from POLITICO.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([email protected], @bkingdc), Heidi Vogt ([email protected], @HeidiVogt), Nancy Scola ([email protected], @nancyscola), Steven Overly ([email protected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([email protected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([email protected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected], @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen ([email protected]com, @leah_nylen).

TTYL.