Roger Alford is a legislation professor at Notre Dame, and a veteran of the Trump I administration the place he was the Division of Justice’s prime antitrust official for worldwide affairs. Within the Tump II reign, he took up the position of principal deputy assistant lawyer normal within the DOJ’s antitrust division. However he’s been pressured out of that position, and based mostly on current feedback, his place towards the merger between rivals Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks is on the root of his ouster.
Initially the DOJ sued to dam the merger, however HPE employed MAGA influencers Mike Davis and Arthur Schwartz. Since that fortuitous hiring, HPE reached a settlement with the federal government to maneuver the merger ahead,
And Alford is just not completely happy about it.
In a speech on the Know-how Coverage Institute in Aspen, Colorado, Alford referred to as on the courts to undo the injury the alleged corruption hath wrought, saying, “I hope the [federal court overseeing the Justice Department’s proposed resolution] blocks the HPE/Juniper merger,” and urging them to “look at the stunning reality of what occurred.”Alford assured the viewers, “Should you knew what I knew, you’d hope so too.”
As reported by the Wall Avenue Journal, Alford locations a whole lot of the blame on two of Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi’s lackeys — Chad Mizelle, partner to… questionable federal judge Kathryn Mizelle, and Stanley Woodward.
Alford stated Bondi’s chief of employees, Chad Mizelle, is liable to favoring exterior legal professionals and lobbyists with whom he’s associates. Mizelle and one other prime aide to Bondi, Stanley Woodward, performed important roles in how the division settled with HPE and Juniper in June, Alford stated. Trump has nominated Woodward to be the Justice Division’s third-ranking official.
“Chad Mizelle accepts celebration conferences and makes key selections relying on whether or not the request or info comes from a MAGA pal,” Alford stated. “Conscious of this injustice, corporations are hiring legal professionals and affect peddlers to bolster their MAGA credentials and pervert conventional legislation enforcement.”
Alford continued, “Though I’m restricted in what I can say, it’s my opinion that within the HPE/Juniper merger scandal Chad Mizelle and Stanley Woodward perverted justice and acted inconsistent with the rule of legislation.” “I’m not given to hyperbole, and I don’t say that calmly.”
Alford’s description of life within the antitrust division reads downright dystopian, with MAGA affect the brand new forex of the day:
Is that this the brand new regular, with each legislation agency hiring an affect peddler to twin monitor and sidestep the litigation and merger evaluation course of? That’s what legislation corporations at the moment are contemplating. The Division of Justice is now overwhelmed with lobbyists with little antitrust experience going above the Antitrust Division management in search of particular favors with heat hugs. On quite a few events in quite a lot of issues we implored our superiors and the legal professionals on the opposite facet to name off the jackals. However to no avail. At present circumstances are being resolved based mostly on political connections, not the authorized deserves.
However his hearth feedback (you may read them in full here) didn’t simply give attention to the DOJ workers Alford believes betrayed their rules. He additionally had alternative phrases for the lobbyists.
Mike Davis and Arthur Schwartz have made a Faustian cut price of buying and selling on relationships with highly effective folks to reportedly earn million-dollar success charges by serving to companies undermine Trump’s antitrust agenda, harm working class Individuals, break the principles, after which attempt to cowl it up. Exterior the small circle of transactional MAGA associates in search of and giving favors, do these lobbyists and their associates in energy truly know what conventional or populist conservatives take into consideration them? When lobbyists like Mike Davis and Will Levi go to their Supreme Court docket clerkship reunions, how do honorable conservative legal professionals who clerked for the good Justices Alito and Gorsuch view their shenanigans? Do the executives and the legal professionals who rent these lobbyists know what the antitrust bar and the Division’s leaders and legal professionals consider their habits? They’ve lengthy recollections.
And Alford makes it clear that he believes his stance towards corruption is behind his firing.
My place whereas I served in authorities was easy: lobbyists and legal professionals are subordinate to the legislation. But by stating this reality, I used to be dismissed for insubordination. My termination letter is now framed and hangs on the wall in my workplace at Notre Dame. I joke with associates that I’ve by no means been fired earlier than, and I’ve been working since my first job as a younger teenager on the Dairy Queen in Sherman, Texas. All it took to be fired had been lobbyists exerting affect on my superiors to retaliate towards me for shielding the rule of legislation towards the rule of lobbyists.
However a DOJ spokesperson, when requested for remark, had a really completely different take, “Roger Alford is the James Comey of antitrust—pursuing blind self-promotion and ego, whereas ignoring actuality.” And HPE offered the next assertion, “Any suggestion that HPE procured the settlement by unethical or improper means is fake and irresponsible.”
Alford supposes that he’ll be written off as “naïve,” and there’s a hoop of reality there. I imply, he *was* working for the Trump administration. That’s the man who bullied 9 main legislation corporations into giving him almost a billion dollars in free legal services to get out from underneath unconstitutional govt orders. The identical one who finagled $20 million in free air time from CBS as a result of he didn’t like 60 Minutes’ journalism. Who received himself a “free” airplane from Qatar. Pay-to-play is the secret in 2025, and the antitrust division is simply taking their lead from the highest.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Legislation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the most effective, so please join along with her. Be at liberty to e-mail her with any suggestions, questions, or feedback and comply with her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
