Barr’s Personal Animus Towards Marijuana Prompted Cannabis Industry Probes, DOJ Whistleblower Says

“Personal dislike of the industry is not a proper basis upon which to ground an antitrust investigation,” John Elias, a career DOJ employee, testified Wednesday.

Elias, who joined the DOJ in 2006 and served as the Antitrust Division’s chief of staff between January 2017 and October 2018, says that marijuana-related investigations accounted for 29% of full-review merger investigations in fiscal 2019.

Barr based decisions about probes “not on an antitrust analysis, but because he did not like the nature of their underlying business,” Elias said.