The federal judge overseeing the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Google over advertising technology monopolies rejected the search engine's claim that the department's antitrust lead is biased.

District Judge Leonie Brinkema denied Google's attempt to force DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter to appear for questioning about his alleged biases in a Friday filing.

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Kanter, who was appointed by Biden in 2021, previously represented Yelp, which Google argues is a competitor. Kanter advocates "hipster antitrust" policy, which abandons the consumer welfare standard that guided U.S. antitrust policy for decades in favor of a much more skeptical approach that also considers other factors, such as corporate concentration and income inequality.

Google's claims about Kanter are "essentially a red herring defense," Brinkema determined at a Friday hearing, according to the Washington Post.

"In my view, this is a mistake," Brinkema said. "Google needs to focus on … whether the advertising platform is anti-competitive — that's the case."

Google was also chastised for failing to provide the millions of documents requested by the DOJ, with Brinkema noting that the company was well past the deadline. "You need to get this case more focused," Brinkema told Google attorney Eric Mahr. "There are huge discovery problems."

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The January 2023 lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a multipronged effort to go after Google over antitrust claims. The DOJ and 17 states seek $300 million from Google as compensation for alleged monopolies over the technology used to drive online advertising.

The rebuke to Google on Friday comes as the company and the DOJ are squaring off in a separate case in the District Court of the District of Columbia, in which the government has accused Google of manipulating its search monopoly to push competition out of the marketplace. The DOJ began presenting its case on Tuesday. The trial is expected to last eight weeks and will delve deep into the search engine's business practices.