Trump DOJ corruption? Fired aide alleges payments for merger approvals.

A former Trump Ministry of Justice has blown up some of his ex-colleagues In a speech MondayThey said that they “acted justice perverse and not with the rule of law” – and he gave names.

Roger Alford was a top representative in the Cartel department of the doj in both the first and the second term of President Donald Trump. He and his boss, the head of the Doj Antitrust Division, Gail Slater, are with a faction on which they represent a more skeptical view of mergers in sectors in which only a few large companies compete.

But Alford was fired last month. And now he has gone to the public, what happened and to implement what he said was to a “pay-to-play” scandal, in which the company paid well-networked outdoor maga-influencers to try to approve mergers, and certain top doj officers played ball.

“For 30 silver parts, lobbyists only influence their allies within the DOJ and risk President Trump's populist conservative agenda within the DOJ,” said Alford. “Your goal is to suspend your own pockets by working for every company that pays the top dollar to pay antitrust cases cheaply.”

“Perverted justice and did not deal with the rule of law”

Although Alford had nothing negative about Trump or Attorney General Pam Bondi, he particularly pointed to two civil servants: Bondi's chief of staff, Chad Mizelle and Associate General Stane Woodward.

Mizelle “makes important decisions, depending on whether the request or information comes from a Maga friend,” said Alford. He continued: “The companies hire these injustices and control lawyers and influence the leading role to strengthen their Maga references and the traditional law enforcement authorities to perverse.”

The background to this is that the Cartel team of the Doj in January, shortly after Trump was sworn in laminated Block the IT company Hewlett Packard Enterprise from buying a rival, Juniper Networks.

But in June Doj suddenly stepped back and agreed a settlement This made the deal continue with minor concessions.

Alford clearly believes that Hewlett Packard has set two outside Maga figures to grease the bikes for her: Mike Davis (a conservative legal activist) and Arthur Schwartz (a long -time ally of Donald Trump Jr.).

“Mike Davis and Arthur Schwartz have made a Faustian trade qualification of trade with mighty people in order to report to millions of dollars, by helping companies to undermine Trump's antitrust agent, to violate the workers' Americans, break and then cover up the rules,” said Alford in his speech.

Alford did not respond to all the details about what happened, but Semafor reported This micelle has overridden Slater and Alford to push the Hewlett Packard settlement through – and Alford was released shortly afterwards. (The drama has buried itself in public, and even Laura Loomer was committed Matt Stoller has recorded.))

Alford's speech asked a judge who checked the merger to deal with the matter and continued: “I think that Chad Mizelle and Stanley Woodward perverted justice in the HPE/Juniper fusion scandal and were not traded in accordance with the rule of law.

A doj spokesman pushed back in a statement: “Roger Alford is the James Comey of antitrust law and blind self-promotion and ego, while ignoring reality.

What is really about

In the past ten years a New cartel movement Skeptically opposite Big Tech and Big Corporations have generally achieved a certain traction both left and right. Joe Biden's FTC chairwoman, Lina Khan, became the face of this movement for Democrats and certain emerging republicans who were looking for a populist brand like JD Vance. known admiration for you.

Most Republicans, however, loathed Khan, with complaints from managing directors, that they examined excessive mergers and took the traditional Pro corporate line of the GOP.

When Trump won his second term, he nominated a Vance employee Gail Slater as his Doj cartel boss. Cartel reformers like Stoller liked slater and took your appointment As an encouraging sign that “Trump wants to take over great technology”.

In practice, however, Trump's administration was most defined by the government's weapons for Shakedown tactics. Trump likes business and he likes to get companies (or universities) to cough money. He likes it when people ask him for favors and he likes to ask about things in return. He never really got involved in an ideological agenda of hard antitrust reinforcement. And he's fine with Big Tech, as long as Big Tech Gives him what he wants.

Slater and Alford did not apparently not get the memo and thought they had a free hand to enforce the law because they felt appropriate. But that brought them to enemies inside and outside the administration, CBS News reported last month. There were business to have – and earned money.

In his speech, Alford referred to “people inside and outside the government”, which “do not see the law enforcement authorities as binding rules, but rather as an opportunity to use power and to extract concessions”.

But although Alford blamed these two Doj officials, his description of Trump's approach to the government seems to be quite good.

We do not know whether Trump has involved himself in the Hewlett Packard matter. But as the saying says, that Cossacks work for the tsar.