Obama’s ‘secret weapon’ on antitrust leaves Justice

Gene Kimmelman, known as the Justice Department’s “secret weapon” on antitrust, is leaving the agency to open the Washington (DC) office of the human rights organization Global Partners and Associates, current and former federal officials say.

Since his appointment in August 2009, Kimmelman has kept a relatively low public profile but has been one of the department’s most influential antitrust policy makers. Some liberals say Kimmelman helped revitalize a division that had grown soft under President George W. Bush. But industry officials and some conservatives say the department’s recent antitrust actions exemplify the Obama administration’s lack of business understanding. Working from a heavy wooden desk once used by J. Edgar Hoover, Kimmelman, 57, was a driving force behind Justice’s rejection of AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile in November, a defining moment for the administration’s efforts to police the rapidly shifting high-tech and communications sectors. As a chief counsel in Justice’s antitrust division, Kimmelman also helped lead its approval of Comcast’s joint venture with NBC Universal — a controversial mega-merger that was granted but with a litany of conditions to protect competition from online firms as well as consumer cable and Internet costs. Kimmelman declined to comment for this story. The Justice Department confirmed his departure, but declined to comment further.