U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stepped up his accusations against Google, claiming that the company had sabotaged his 2016 presidential campaign, warning that he was watching it "closely" ahead of next year's elections.
In a series of Tweets on Tuesday, Trump also sharply criticized Google CEO Sundar Pichai and again raised questions about the company's business with China, despite his administration's past statements that the scope of any such action is limited.
"Google President Sundar Pichai tried hard to impress me during our meeting in the Oval Office, and he tried to convince me of the wonderful work their administration is doing, not being involved with the Chinese military, and not helping crook Hillary (Clinton) in the 2016 election," Trump wrote on Twitter.
The President added his attack on Google by saying, "He also tried to convince me (Pichai) that they were not planning to interfere illegally in the 2020 elections, despite all that has been said about them. All this was nice talk, until I heard Google's engineer, Kevin Kernicki, reveal terrible things about what they did in 2016."
The President warned that they were "watching Google closely", at the end of his series of tweets Tuesday.
Trump accused Google of "illegal" acts, as he described it, but gave no evidence, nor did formal charges be made public.
"We are doing our best to build our products and enforce our policies in ways that do not take political leanings into account," a Google spokesman said in an emailed statement, according to Reuters.
Trump, who is seeking re-election in 2020, has repeatedly criticized Google and a number of other technology companies, echoing allegations of unfair treatment of them and waving regulatory action against them.
Lawmakers also raised the possibility that these companies might be subject to controls, citing, among other reasons, security and misinformation after the 2016 election, and the revelation of Russian interference, which relied heavily on technology and social media sites.
A Google spokesman added: "Misrepresentation of results for political purposes harms our business and runs counter to our mission to provide useful content to all our users."
White House representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the steps the Trump administration plans to take against the company.
Trump and Pichai met at the White House last month, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after the meeting that both had been assured that Google's business with China was "very limited."
By Julia Chang August 7, 2019
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