The DOJ Is Open for Business

How Trump turned antitrust enforcement into a pay-to-play racket for cronies, lobbyists, and even family judgeships.

Donald Trump didn’t just take over the Department of Justice; he appears to have franchised it. What was once the nation’s premier guardian of fair competition is now a storefront for MAGA’s favorite fixers, selling merger approvals like raffle tickets and handing the proceeds to insiders.

Roger Alford is not some outside critic lobbing grenades from the sidelines. Until last month, he was the second-in-command of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, a conservative lawyer who also served during Trump’s first administration. After being fired for resisting political interference in a merger case, he returned to his post as a law professor at Notre Dame.

This week, at the Tech Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum, an influential gathering of antitrust scholars, regulators, and industry insiders, Alford delivered a remarkable speech. He accused Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top aides of selling merger clearance to Trumpworld lobbyists and declared that the HPE–Juniper deal was nothing short of a “scandal.”

He urged the federal judge overseeing the case to use the Tunney Act, a little-used safeguard against antitrust corruption, to force discovery into what happened behind closed doors.

The case of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $14 billion buyout of Juniper Networks lays it bare. Trump’s DOJ initially sued to stop the merger, warning it would kill competition in wireless networking and drive up prices. But then came the cavalry: MAGA influencers quickly swooped in to save the deal. Mike Davis, a right-wing operative who made his name running smear campaigns against Democratic judicial nominees, now moonlights as a “lawyer-lobbyist” cashing in on Trump connections. Arthur Schwartz, known as Trump’s “in-house enforcer” and close to Don Jr., has long been a fixer who weaponizes social media to attack enemies. And Will Levi, once a top aide to Bill Barr at DOJ, leveraged his insider credentials to broker influence with Bondi’s team.

Together, the trio of MAGA influencers, Mike Davis, Arthur Schwartz, and Will Levi, pocketed a reported $1 million “success fee” from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper to twist arms inside DOJ and overturn the merger lawsuit. Their pitch was simple: they weren’t just lobbyists, they were MAGA lobbyists. And inside DOJ, they found willing allies.

Chad Mizelle, Pam Bondi’s chief of staff and a young Trump loyalist with little antitrust background, has been accused by Alford of making key enforcement decisions based on whether a request came from a “MAGA friend.” Alongside him was Stanley Woodward, a longtime MAGA defense attorney best known for representing January 6 defendants and Trump co-conspirators. Alford accused Woodward directly of “perverting justice.” Both men, he says, treated MAGA fixers like Davis and Schwartz as family, overruling career officials to reward their pals.

Behind the curtain, according to Alford, the real power wasn’t law or economics; it was loyalty lists and party favors. The Antitrust Division’s work was sidelined by political operatives with no expertise, just the right connections. When Alford and fellow enforcer William Rinner pushed back, they were fired.

We’ve already seen this pattern with the Paramount–Skydance merger. Trump officials stalled the $8.4 billion deal for months, only to approve it once Trumpworld got its cut: tens of millions in “donations” funneled through Trump Inc. and his so-called presidential library foundation, alongside the infamous 60 Minutes hit piece on Kamala Harris that served as an additional political tribute. Only after the tribute was paid did the FCC and DOJ suddenly clear the way.

The same fingerprints are on Trump’s industrial policy. When the administration announced a federal stake in Intel to boost domestic chip production, antitrust insiders noted that MAGA-aligned lobbyists were already trading on that news, just as Trump’s sons and close associates were reportedly moving in semiconductor stocks. The same goes for U.S. Steel, where Trump’s “equity investment” coincided with his allies boosting positions in steel futures, and for rare-earth mining firms, where Defense Department dollars were steered into companies tied to Trump’s donor network. Legal analyst Michael Popok quipped, “somebody in Trumpworld is always on the other side of the trade.”

And the corruption isn’t limited to balance sheets. Chad Mizelle’s wife, Kathryn Mizelle, was elevated to a federal judgeship in Florida at just 33 years old, the youngest Trump appointee in decades, despite the American Bar Association rating her “not qualified” for the role. She had barely practiced law, had never tried a case to verdict, and owed her ascent to political loyalty rather than merit. That rise was greased by the very same MAGA operatives now cashing in on merger cases, lobbyist Mike Davis chief among them. According to Alford, Davis not only delivers for corporate clients but also shepherds judicial nominees through Trump’s pipeline. In other words, the fixer who gets Hewlett Packard’s merger approved is the same fixer greasing the skids for Mizelle’s family career.

This is a loyalty racket: corporations line up to pay MAGA intermediaries like Davis and Schwartz, who pocket seven-figure “success fees,” while insiders like Mizelle and Woodward bless the deals. Trump’s DOJ isn’t deciding mergers based on consumer welfare, it’s running a pay-to-play operation where outcomes are bought, friends are rewarded, and the public picks up the tab.

Alford, a conservative who served loyally in both Trump administrations, isn’t mincing words: he’s urging Judge Casey Pitts to invoke the Tunney Act, a law designed to protect antitrust enforcement from exactly this kind of corruption, and demand discovery into what he bluntly calls the “HPE–Juniper merger scandal.” His line is ominous: “Someday I may have the opportunity to say more.” Translation: put me under oath, and the floodgates open.

Alford warns that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, already notorious for monopolizing live events, have hired the same lobbyists to get their DOJ case dropped. If true, it means the DOJ is not merely asleep at the wheel, it’s actively selling the wheel to the highest bidder.

And here’s the kicker: Alford says this system is worse for business than tough but consistent enforcement. Companies no longer just worry if their merger is legal, they have to wonder if they’ve paid the right MAGA influencer to bless it. Ethical lawyers can’t compete, so they leave the field. Corruption isn’t just rotting government; it’s rotting the market itself.

Trump ran for president promising to drain the swamp. Instead, he’s built a new one, where corporations line up to pay fealty through his favorite lobbyists, cronies get rich, and the American public pays higher prices for less competition. Call it what it is: pay-to-play government by shakedown.