I released a story last Thursday about MAGA lobbyists pushing the Justice Department to settle its monopolization case against Ticketmaster. By the middle of that day, Gail Slater, who was the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, resigned, and it was clear that her choice was either to resign or be fired.
A lot of reporting about this situation dropped almost immediately after the resignation—CBS, The Guardian, The Free Press, the Financial Times—regarding tensions between Slater and Attorney General Pam Bondi, internal insubordination, whether Vice President JD Vance would act as a shield for his former staffer Slater, what this means for the populist right, and more. As you might expect, I’m not wired into the inner workings of the Trump White House enough to generate one of these palace intrigue articles. But I don’t think they have as much value as the basic facts.
Lobbyists with ties to Trump control the Justice Department through their sock puppets of Bondi, her top deputy Todd Blanche, and previously her chief of staff Chad Mizelle. These lobbyists—Mike Davis, Arthur Schwartz, Brian Ballard of Ballard Partners, Kellyanne Conway—get millions of dollars from monopolist corporations, in return for delivering sweetheart settlements and merger green lights. We’ve seen this happen over and over: Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, Amex GBT and CWT Holdings, Compass and Anywhere Real Estate, UnitedHealth and Amedisys. Live Nation–Ticketmaster is next, followed by Visa. When Slater stepped down, Live Nation stock soared.
This isn’t about some high-minded theory of market dynamics or national-security considerations, or about personal vendettas and who ruffled whose feathers. Davis and his pals are cashing checks.
Slater largely did not get in the way of this. She may have grumbled about it, but if the job is to enforce the antitrust laws, she manifestly failed. She didn’t file any monopolization or merger cases in her year at the division. She saw her life’s work overrun by lobbyist imperatives and meekly went along with it until she got canned. If she was planning to resign before being told she was out, that’s something none of the tick-tocks indicate. I don’t think praise is warranted for someone who had every intention of serving out her time, even after all her deputies were fired and she was routinely humiliated.
On Tap This story first appeared in the On Tap newsletter, a weekday email featuring commentary on the daily news from Robert Kuttner and Harold Meyerson.
Simply disagreeing with the lobbyist-driven regime is grounds for firing, and Mike Davis (maybe the most cynical man in politics, a fake populist crusader who a year ago called Slater “my good friend” and praised what a great job she’d do on competition) demanded that she be fired for getting in the way of his money-grubbing. Because lobbyists run the Justice Department, that’s what happened. Davis then took a public victory lap.
No matter how many anonymous sources give quotes about the vice president’s thinking, the reality is that JD Vance is a coward in the face of money and power, and he was never going to do anything to disrupt the free flow of corrupt cash.
This is all going to come out in the ugliest possible way. Davis, Schwartz, and Mizelle are going to be deposed in a Tunney Act proceeding in the HPE-Juniper case, where state attorneys general are challenging whether that merger was approved in the public interest. Davis and Schwartz will be asked about how much money they received from these corporations. Mizelle, who quit as Bondi’s chief of staff amid this pressure, will be asked how DOJ gave itself over to these lobbyists. Roger Alford, Slater’s former top deputy whom Mizelle fired and who then spoke out about the lobbyist takeover, will get to open up more. And we’ll all get to see how far the rot goes.
The lobbyist checks will be cashed anyway, and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department has been functionally dissolved until further notice. Right-wing populism is a joke, swarmed over by a sea of Monopoly money. In 2029, if Democrats take back the White House and Congress, they can “pass legislation … that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime, as well as breaking up companies who have their monopolization cases settled” as the American Economic Liberties Project recommended.
Until then, when you’re overcharged for concert tickets, blame Mike Davis.
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