Top regulators battle to crack down on Big Tech giants

Driving the news: Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons has written a letter to the Justice Department's antitrust division complaining about the DOJ's behavior in handling disagreements over which agency has the authority to probe Facebook, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) intends to bring up the letter and address the issue at a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing Tuesday, his office confirmed to Axios.

Be smart: Both agencies have clashed over who has jurisdiction to investigate, particularly Facebook.

• Earlier this year the two agencies agreed that they would divide up investigations into the companies, with the DOJ taking on Alphabet (the parent company of Google) and Apple, and the FTC looking into Facebook and Amazon.
• Tensions apparently rose in July when the DOJ announced another sweeping investigation into Big Tech platforms for their dominance, a move which reportedly had the FTC concerned that the DOJ would be stepping on its turf to investigate Facebook.

The big picture: A growing list of media investigations are presenting evidence of tech platforms abusing their dominance to promote their own products and services.

• On Monday, the Journal reported that Amazon has changed its search function to more prominently feature products that are more profitable for the company. Amazon denies the report, saying it features products customers want, "regardless of whether they are our own brands or products offered by our selling partners."
• Last week, a New York Times investigation revealed that Apple-owned apps often top rivals in its own App Store.
• Friday, the House Judiciary Committee sent Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon lengthy document requests, including executives' private communications, for its own investigation into the companies' practices.

The bottom line: Multiple probes can help regulators cover the vast territory they have set out to explore. But any time and resources they spend fighting each other will only benefit the companies they are seeking to hold accountable.

Go deeper: The growing list of U.S. government inquiries into Big Tech

Editor's note: This story has been updated since publication.

• "After nearly a month of stonewalling, it appears clear that the President has chosen the path of defiance, obstruction, and cover-up," the letter reads.

The state of play: Several White House officials have told Axios' Alayna Treene that the administration has no plans of complying with the committees' demands for interviews or documents without a full House vote formally approving an impeachment inquiry.

The big picture: The Trump administration's initial refusal to turn over the whistleblower complaint on the president's interactions with Ukraine is what led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to finally support a formal impeachment inquiry.

Go deeper: Trump letter dares Pelosi to hold vote on impeachment inquiry

• Johnson asked the Justice Department earlier this week to look into links between Ukraine and Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. His letter questioned the narrative that Biden's actions in Ukraine had nothing to do with his son's connection.
• However, it was also discovered that he signed onto a 2016 letter that mirrored Biden's work to reform Ukraine's prosecutor general and judiciary.
• There is no evidence that Biden's reform work in Ukraine was to protect his son's business dealings, as the president and some of his allies allege, or that he committed any form of corruption.

The state of play: Sondland, a Trump political appointee who donated $1 million to the president's inaugural committee, denied that there was a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and Ukraine's government in a series of text messages that former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker provided to a group of House committees investigating the Trump-Ukraine matter.

• "I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, texted Sondland.
• Sondland texted back: "Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind."
• The New York Times reported that Sondland's response came only after he spoke to the president.

Go deeper: House committees release texts from former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker