Google is urging the Ninth Circuit to disregard concerns Rumble has raised about the trial judge's relationship with the tech giant's litigation vice president, saying Friday that the information is irrelevant to the YouTube rival's appeal of the court's ruling that its antitrust lawsuit was filed too late.

Rumble asked the appeals court earlier this month to take notice of a Stanford Law School article detailing U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr.'s years-long friendship with Google's vice president for litigation and discovery, Cassandra Knight, as well as recusal orders Judge Gilliam has issued in other cases.

The Stanford Lawyer Magazine article detailed how Judge Gilliam officiated at Knight's wedding in 2021 and how Knight spoke at his investiture ceremony about a decade ago.

Those revelations also prompted now-defunct advertising app maker Unlockd Media to request his recusal in its antitrust dispute with Google, which the judge dismissed in February.

Google, however, argued Friday that these materials are "irrelevant to [Rumble's] appeal." That came after the tech giant called the streaming platform's recusal bid a "cynical maneuver" for its appeal last week, arguing that federal courts have repeatedly recognized that friendships between lawyers and judges, "without more," don't require recusal.

"Rumble's strategy in bringing this motion is transparent," Google's most recent filing said. "Filed just days after Google's answering brief in which Google explained why summary judgment should be affirmed for multiple reasons, Rumble's motion seeks to distract from its meritless appeal by attempting to unfairly cast doubt on the district court's impartiality. Yet at the same time, Rumble expressly acknowledges — as it must — that there is no evidence of actual bias in this case."

Counsel for the parties did not immediately respond to Law360's request for comment.

Judge Gilliam tossed Rumble's case back in May, siding with Google that its monopolization claim is barred by its four-year statute of limitations. The lawsuit accused Google of rigging its search results to favor subsidiary YouTube over Rumble.

Rumble is represented by Robert W. Dickerson Jr. and Allan W. Jansen of Competition & Technology Law Group LLP, Nicholas A. Gravante, Philip J. Iovieno, Jack G. Stern and Kristen J. McAhren of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP and David Boies of Boies Schiller and Flexner LLP.

Google is represented by John E. Schmidtlein, Stephen J. Fuzesi, Benjamin M. Greenblum, Daniel Whiteley and Jesse T. Clay of Williams & Connolly LLP and David H. Kramer of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC.

The case is Rumble Inc. v. Google Inc., case number 5:21-cv-00229, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.