美国司法部如何沦为MAGA说客的“狩猎场” How the Department of Justice became a feeding ground for MAGA lobbyists

“THREE INTO two? You must sue.” That was the verdict that Mike Davis, a firebrand conservative lawyer friendly with Donald Trump, posted online in late January last year. The proposed merger of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper, two of America’s top three suppliers of wireless networking gear, alongside Cisco, appeared to Mr Davis to be a clear danger to market competitiveness. The Department of Justice (DoJ) agreed. Earlier that day it had sued to block the merger.

At the outset of Mr Trump’s second term in office, it seemed as though such mergers might face stiff resistance. On the campaign trail J.D. Vance raged against the power of big business, and Silicon Valley’s giants in particular. In March last year Gail Slater, a former adviser to the vice-president, took charge of the DoJ’s antitrust division, one of two bodies responsible for competition enforcement in America, and soon began playing hardball with HPE.

Much has changed in the year since then. In June the DoJ settled its case against HPE and Juniper, allowing the tie-up to proceed with only a few concessions. Other mega-mergers—including between Compass and Anywhere Real Estate, two big property-brokers, and between Capital One and Discover, a pair of consumer-credit companies—have been waved through. Last month the DoJ settled an antitrust lawsuit it had brought against Live Nation, which dominates ticket sales for big concerts. A few weeks earlier Ms Slater had resigned from her post, having reportedly been forced out of the job.

All this may have a humdrum explanation: even if Mr Vance fancies himself a modern-day Teddy Roosevelt, his boss loves the thrill of a deal. Yet there is mounting evidence of something more troubling. On March 23rd hearings began in a lawsuit brought by a group of state attorneys-general challenging the HPE-Juniper settlement. Documents filed ahead of the hearing and sworn testimony from witnesses including Roger Alford, a Republican lawyer who served as one of Ms Slater’s deputies, allege that the DoJ is rubber-stamping mergers at the behest of influential MAGA figures who are on the payrolls of the firms the agency is investigating.

The fixer-in-chief is said to be none other than Mr Davis, who has been hired by several companies that have gained remarkably favourable outcomes in antitrust dealings with the DoJ. Mr Davis has no experience representing firms in merger litigation. Nor is he a registered lobbyist. Even so, sources say he charges $300,000 per month plus a success fee of at least $1m (and sometimes much more) to get a merger approved or lawsuit favourably settled. By comparison, the most any client paid a single representative at Ballard Partners, the highest-grossing K Street lobbyist, was $200,000 per month last year. The fee structure—with a bonus paid when a client gets its way—is also unusual. A long-time Washington insider laments that “it was never that venal” in his time. The rise of Mr Davis shows how a new breed of swamp creature is emerging in America.

Not long ago Mr Davis and Ms Slater were chums. In February last year, on the day of her Senate confirmation hearing, he posted a photo of the pair, praising her as someone who would “help make America competitive again”. Yet their relationship deteriorated as Mr Davis sought to cash in on his MAGA connections, starting with the HPE-Juniper case. Alongside Freshfields, an elite law firm hired as its official “counsel of record”, HPE enlisted Mr Davis, as well as William Levi, who had led the handover process at the DoJ ahead of Mr Trump’s return to the White House, and Arthur Schwartz, a lobbyist close to Mr Vance and Donald Trump junior.

In their filing the state attorneys-general alleged that the three men, whom they call the “lobbyists”, then set about negotiating with the DoJ. They met with Omeed Assefi, who was acting head of the antitrust division before Ms Slater’s appointment (and is now in that role once again), at the Metropolitan Club, a private members’ joint, and worked up a settlement proposal. When they shared it with the DoJ, Bill Rinner, one of Ms Slater’s deputies, pushed back, saying it did nothing to address competition concerns. Ms Slater was similarly unimpressed.

The filing alleges that “intense verbal and text exchanges” followed between Ms Slater and Mr Davis, who reportedly threatened to get her sacked. Ms Slater’s team insisted on negotiating instead with the counsel of record. “We do not plan to hash out merger settlements over martinis,” Mr Rinner declared in a speech at George Washington University.

The lobbyists, court documents say, turned instead to Chad Mizelle, chief of staff at the time to Pam Bondi, Mr Trump’s attorney-general. Mr Mizelle, it is claimed, then asked Stanley Woodward, a senior DoJ official with no antitrust experience, to take over the negotiations. Ms Slater’s team were not involved again until hours before the settlement was filed at the end of June. A month later Mr Alford and Mr Rinner were sacked. In August Mr Alford gave a speech in which he described some of these events; a complaint was filed seeking to have him disbarred for discussing decisions made at the DoJ.

That more evidence is now coming to light is thanks to the Tunney Act of 1974, which was passed in response to the rank corruption of Richard Nixon’s administration. In 1969 Richard McLaren was appointed as head of antitrust for the DoJ and launched three investigations into International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), a giant in its day. All three were quietly resolved with favourable settlements two years later. Eventually it emerged that Nixon had called Richard Kleindienst, his deputy attorney-general, after ITT pledged to give $400,000 (worth $3.2m today) to fund the Republican National Convention. “I want something clearly understood,” the president said. “The ITT thing—stay the hell out of it. Is that clear? That’s an order.”

Then came the Watergate break-in the following year. Nixon’s phone call to Kleindienst was made public in 1974 as part of the Watergate tapes, after which the president resigned. Later that year the Tunney Act—which requires the government to explain why a merger settlement serves the public interest and mandates that companies disclose all contact with the executive branch—was signed by his successor, Gerald Ford.

Since then plenty of settlements have been scrutinised using the Tunney Act, but none rejected. The HPE-Juniper agreement required HPE to dispose of “Instant On”, a product aimed at smaller businesses. Casey Pitts, the judge presiding over the challenge brought by the state attorneys-general, seems sceptical of this outcome; it does little to address concerns over the impact on competition for big enterprise customers. But HPE and Juniper have already merged, and the judge cannot undo that; he can only accept or reject the settlement. If he rejects it, the DoJ could simply drop its original case.

Mr Davis has used the HPE-Juniper settlement as his calling card. He represented Compass in its acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate, a deal Ms Slater was reportedly prevented from investigating by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney-general. It closed four months after it was proposed. Mr Davis and Kellyanne Conway, an alumna of the first Trump administration, also represented Live Nation in its pursuit of a settlement over its alleged monopolisation of the live-entertainment industry.

What is unclear is how big a role the White House is playing. Mr Davis, who was said to be on Mr Trump’s shortlist to run the DoJ, claims that he is close to the president. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, when the Live Nation trial began Mr Trump started calling around asking why the case had not been settled. In early March the company’s boss reportedly met with Ms Bondi, Mr Assefi and the White House counsel, David Warrington. The settlement with the DoJ was signed the same day. Although there is no evidence of a quid pro quo, Live Nation was among the donors to Mr Trump’s inauguration fund, to which it gave $500,000.

The DoJ has defended all the contested settlements. On the HPE-Juniper case, it has said that its remedies adequately protect competition; on the Compass merger, that Ms Slater’s “flawed understanding…required a different approach”; and on Live Nation, that the agreed settlement would result in “more independent amphitheatres”. As for Mr Davis, he says his work has been “misrepresented” for “political purposes”, and notes that his clients “have the right to counsel and to petition their government”.

Even so, there have been various other allegations of improper influence peddling during Mr Trump’s second term. In November 2024 Boris Epshteyn, an adviser to Mr Trump, was accused by Eric Greitens, a former governor of Missouri, of having asked for payment in exchange for recommending he be nominated for the position of navy secretary (which Mr Epshteyn has denied). In December last year the president granted a pre-emptive pardon to Tim Leiweke, a businessman who had been charged in July with allegedly rigging the bidding for a university arena in Texas. Mr Leiweke reportedly hired Trey Gowdy, a Fox News host and former congressman, to help, which he did over a round of golf with Mr Trump.

The president’s adversaries smell an opportunity. Democrats including Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren have called for the DoJ’s antitrust settlements to be investigated, and sought further information from Ms Bondi. If their party regains control of the House or Senate following the mid-term elections in November, it will have greater power to look for evidence of wrongdoing. In the meantime, there appears to be a sense among those with MAGA connections that they have a window of opportunity to get rich. For now, it remains wide open.