1 Classified Documents Found At The Home Of Mike Pence
Former Vice President Pence's Indiana home is the latest place classified documents have been found. Pence’s lawyers say they discovered a small number of classified documents at his home in Indiana and reports say notified the National Archives of the discovery last week. As a result, the Department of Justice and FBI have launched a probe into how the documents wound up in Pence's home. In a post on his Truth Social platform, former President Donald Trump claimed Pence is an innocent man who has never done "anything knowingly dishonest in his life." The discovery comes as separate investigations into classified documents found at the residencies of President Biden and Trump are being conducted. Under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives once an administration ends, where the files are stored securely.
2 Ticketmaster Grilled During Senate Hearings Over Taylor Swift Ticket Disaster
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday on Ticketmaster's dominance in the ticketing industry following its merger with Live Nation. Live Nation President and CFO Joe Berchtold defended Ticketmaster following its mishandling of concert sales for Taylor Swift's upcoming tour and denied the company holds a monopoly over ticketing services Berchtold said the problems with ticket sales for Swift's tour were due to "three times the amount of bot traffic than we had ever experienced." The bot activity “required us to slow down and even pause our sales. This is what led to a terrible consumer experience that we deeply regret.” But Jack Groetzinger, CEO of SeatGeek, spoke out against Ticketmaster alleging that many venue owners “fear losing Live Nation concerts if they don’t use Ticketmaster” and its services, and argued the company must be broken up. Groetzinger went on to say, “As long as Live Nation remains both the dominant concert promoter and ticketer of major venues in the US, the industry will continue to lack competition and struggle.”
3 DOJ Sues Google Over Online Ad Monopoly
Google is being sued by the Justice Department, along with eight states. The lawsuit targets Google's stranglehold of the online advertising market. This is the second time the U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in just over two years. In their lawsuit, the DOJ and the states argue that Google has set out to control all sides of the market, realizing “it could become ‘the be-all, and end-all location for all ad serving.’” They went onto say that “Google would no longer have to compete on the merits; it could simply set the rules of the game to exclude rivals.” The department’s first lawsuit is expected to go to trial in September.