Washington, D.C. — In response to news that Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Gail Slater has been pushed out of her role at the Department of Justice—following reports of numerous clashes between Slater and high-ranking DOJ officials, some of whom allegedly meddled in antitrust enforcement at the behest of corporate lobbyists—the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.
“The Trump administration’s antitrust ‘policy’ is a pay-to-play scheme orchestrated by lobbyists for would-be and existing monopolists. Slater has a choice between going quietly into the night or revealing everything she knows about efforts to meddle in HPE-Juniper, Compass-Anywhere and more,” said Matt Stoller, Research Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Next month, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust trial is scheduled to begin, and Wall Street expects there will be a settlement to block this trial at the behest of the lobbyists who engineered this ouster. Live Nation’s stock has surged in the minutes following today’s news.”
“Members of Congress need to aggressively investigate the circumstances around these changes in the Antitrust Division and dealings at the Federal Trade Commission now,” Stoller added. “Further, Congress needs to pass legislation in 2029 that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime, as well as breaking up companies who have their monopolization cases settled. In addition, the next Justice Department needs to organize an aggressive white collar criminal law section to jail the lawyers, bankers, and lobbyists enabling this seeming crime spree.”
Background
Reports of pay-for-play antitrust enforcement at the DOJ first emerged following the DOJ’s eleventh-hour settlement in July 2025 of the $14 billion Hewlett Packard Enterprises-Juniper merger — which caused Senators Warren, Booker, Klobuchar, and Blumenthal to call for a federal investigation in the settlement and the resignation of DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle.
The behind-the-scenes dynamics of the HPE-Juniper saga were first reported by The Capitol Forum and Semafor when it was discovered that two top Antitrust Division officials, Roger Alford and Bill Rinner, were forced out due to the objections they raised to the settlement. Further reporting by outlets like UnHerd, BIG, and The American Prospect drew further attention to allegations of pay-to-play interference with the settlement, and how it was coordinated through “boozy backroom meetings” with MAGA-world lobbyists at the Article III project, who in turn exerted influence through then-DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle. At the 2025 Anti-Monopoly Summit, Senator Booker called out Mizelle by name, and Alford himself shed additional light on the settlement and internal turmoil within the Division. Mizelle resigned from the DOJ in September.
Senators Booker, Warren, Blumenthal, and Klobuchar also sent a letter in September sounding the alarm on Stanley Woodward’s nomination, following Mizelle’s resignation, with “allegations that Woodward played a role in undermining the DOJ Antitrust Division’s independence by reportedly cutting backroom deals with politically-connected lobbyists.”
More recently, the DOJ cleared a $1.6 billion merger between real-estate brokerages Compass and Anywhere—one of the largest-ever deals in the residential brokerage industry—without even issuing a Second Request for more information first. The Wall Street Journal reported that Slater had sought extended review of the merger but was overruled after Compass and its lawyers approached DOJ leadership, including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
In August 2025, Alford warned that “Live Nation and Ticketmaster have paid a bevy of cozy MAGA friends to roam the halls of the [Justice Department building’s] Fifth Floor in defense of their monopoly abuses.” In December 2025, the Trump administration pardoned Timothy Lieweke, the former CEO of Oak View, who had been indicted in June for “orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena” in a collusion effort with Live Nation. According to new reporting by The American Prospect, efforts to circumvent the Antitrust Division to settle the antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster have intensified recently. Although the 40 States participating in the lawsuit may continue pursuing the litigation, a settlement by the DOJ will reduce resources for that effort. And a recent FTC lawsuit only seeks civil penalties, not a breakup as the DOJ’s lawsuit does.
Read Economic Liberties’ public comment on the allegedly corrupt DOJ settlement of the HPE/Juniper merger here.
Learn more about Economic Liberties here.
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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; international trade arrangements that promote balanced trade and benefit workers, farmers and small businesses; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.