When he won election, Donald Trump—along with his national security adviser Michael Flynn, his all-purpose counselor Stephen Bannon, and, perhaps, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—was fond of the idea that Russia and Iran, comrades-in-arms in Syria, weren’t natural partners. Flynn was particularly open about his desire to create a new Moscow-Washington alignment against Islamic militants. The pro-Russia, anti-Iran crowd never explained exactly how this strategic jujitsu might be done, except to suggest that the White House might turn a blind eye—blinder than Barack Obama’s—to Russian ambitions in Ukraine and work to reverse American and European sanctions levied after Vladimir Putin’s annexation

On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank’s relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America’s “standards of openness and institutional collegiality.” He says he was fired for his staunch antitrust views on the biggest technology companies and, in specific, his praise for the EU’s decision in June to levy a $2.7 billion fine on Google for unfair market practices.

Lynn has studied monopolies for nearly 20 years (15 of them while based at New America). He is the author of two books on the subject, including Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of