Koch group attacks Warren plan for tech crackdown

A group backed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch is launching an ad blitz pushing lawmakers to reject Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) proposal to break up tech giants.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a Koch-funded free market group, is running ads in Washington, D.C., and in the home states of lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee against Warren’s proposal.

“Don’t politicize antitrust laws,” the ads will urge lawmakers.

“If we use antitrust law to punish successful competitors, we eliminate incentives for innovation,” Billy Easley, a senior tech policy analyst at AFP, said in a statement Friday.

“Government should not be empowered to pick winners and losers in the marketplace and there is a reason we have regulatory enforcement agencies like the Federal Trade Commission to prevent the politicization of this process,” he added. “Our ads are reminding lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that antitrust law exists to protect consumers, not to be used as a political weapon.”

The ads, according to a release on the group’s site, will also include a link to a site where the public can send messages to members of the Judiciary Committee expressing their disapproval of Warren’s plan.