Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump threatened to prosecute Google for displaying “bad stories” about him and “good stories” about his opponent Kamala Harris, should he win the election this November.
The former president took to his Truth Social platform on Friday to express his displeasure with the tech giant’s search results.
“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,” he wrote in the post.
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Trump did not cite any evidence to support the claim.
“This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections,” he added. “If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the Election, and become President of the United States!”
Some news outlets have suggested that Trump may be responding to a study from the conservative Media Research Center (MRC), which allegedly found that search engine results for “Donald Trump presidential race 2024” showed news stories favoring Harris.
Google denied that it manipulates search results to favor either candidate, the New York Times reported.
“Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of search for relevant and common search queries,” a spokesperson told the Times.
It is only the latest instance this week of Trump vowing to prosecute an opponent if he wins the presidency.
Over the past two days, Trump has separately said that Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House, should be prosecuted for both alleged insider trading and security lapses that allowed his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Earlier in the month, Trump made wide-ranging and vague threats of prosecution against “lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, & corrupt election officials” who had “cheated” him—or anyone involved in “unscrupulous behavior.”
