DOJ’s Antitrust Chief Resigns Amid Accusations of Corruption Among Top Officials

Gail Slater announced her resignation as Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division on Thursday morning. Slater’s sudden departure follows disagreements over merger enforcement with Attorney General Pam Bondi, and corruption allegations about senior DOJ officials.

Slater’s “America First Antitrust Policy,” inspired by big-is-bad New Right intellectuals Oren Cass and Sohrab Ahmari, put her at odds with “the business-friendly stance of the administration,” according to The Guardian. 

The philosophical differences between Slater and the administration came to a head last year when the DOJ sued to block the $14 billion merger of Hewlett Packard (H.P.) and Juniper Networks, “the second- and third- largest providers, respectively, of enterprise-grade WLAN [wireless networking] solutions in the United States” in January 2025. Although Slater was not officially in charge of the agency’s antitrust division at the time (she wasn’t confirmed by the Senate until March 12) she largely influenced the decision. Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed Assefi warned that the merger would result in Americans “paying more for less from wireless technology providers.” Slater reportedly told Bondi that intelligence agencies did not raise national security concerns about blocking the merger.

It turns out CIA Director John Ratcliffe did have such concerns and wondered why he was not consulted by Slater. Slater’s assurances to the contrary caused Bondi to feel as if “Slater had lied to her to continue with the suit,” per The Guardian. Ultimately, the Justice Department dropped the suit in June and fired Roger Alford, Slater’s top deputy, and William Rinner, the head of merger enforcement. 

Even though he was fired, Alford remained in the spotlight and began a campaign against lobbyists who he said were influencing DOJ officials and pitting them against Slater. In August, Alford delivered a speech at the Tech Policy Institute Aspen Forum, provocatively entitled, “The Rule of Law Versus the Rule of Lobbyists.” In his speech, Alford referred to a battle between “MAGA-In-Name-Only lobbyists and DOJ officials enabling them” and “genuine MAGA reformers…like my boss Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater.” Alford did not indict Bondi for corruption, but alleged that Chad Mizelle, her chief of staff, and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward have “perverted justice and acted inconsistent with the rule of law” in the H.P.-Juniper case. Moreover, Alford accused Mizelle of generally “accept[ing] party meetings and mak[ing] key decisions depending on whether the request or information comes from a MAGA friend.” 

Alford’s crusade against the rule of lobbyists did not stop at the Aspen Forum; in December, he testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust at a hearing on how foreign governments use antitrust to target American companies. Instead of focusing on the topic of the hearing, Alford used his time to testify that MAGA lobbyists are “attempting to corruptly influence antitrust law enforcement.” 

As evidence of the Trump administration’s interference with antitrust investigations, Alford cited lobbyist Trey Gowdy’s November golf outing with President Donald Trump. Following their meeting, Trump preemptively pardoned Tim Leiweke, former CEO of Oak View Group, who hired Gowdy as a lobbyist after he was indicted in July by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division for rigging bids to build a stadium at a public university. 

Lobbyists appealing directly to Trump comes as no surprise. In December, Trump said he would be “involved in [the] decision” to block Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), following an aggressive campaign against the deal by rival bidder Paramount Skydance, which is majority-owned by Trump supporter Larry Ellison. (Last Wednesday, Trump reversed course, telling NBC’s Tom Llamas that he hasn’t been involved in the WBD deal.) 

But, as the H.P.-Juniper and Leiweke examples show, Slater remained steadfastly committed to her idiosyncratic antitrust agenda. Slater’s intransigence caused lobbyists to “seek to have [her] removed from her Senate-confirmed position,” according to Alford, but she refused to “abandon the ship in a storm.” But Slater finally walked the plank after being “given the option to resign rather than be fired at the end of the week,” according to The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell. 

Shortly after Slater’s announcement, Bondi thanked her “for her service to the Antitrust Division” on behalf of the Justice Department. Mizelle, Bondi’s chief of staff, had a less conciliatory tone, saying people “must be willing to put aside personal agendas and vendettas to advance the President’s priorities and serve the American people” to work at the Justice Department. 

Mike Davis, founder and managing partner of MRDLaw, who advertises his “extensive network in Washington, D.C. across the three branches of government” and was accused by Alford of peddling his influence of Mizelle in the H.P.-Juniper case, said “good riddance” to his once “good friend” Gail Slater.