Interviews with over three dozen people detail how lobbyist Mike Davis used his ties to Trump to push the DOJ to approve deals, including HPE's Juniper deal
This reporting adds a political-access dimension: it alleges that Mike Davis pressed the DOJ on deal approvals through his Trump ties. That matters because it raises questions not just about the outcome of one merger, but about how enforcement priorities and exceptions are being reached.
For HPE and Juniper, the immediate risk is reputational and procedural: attention shifts from the merger's competitive rationale to whether the approval process appeared insulated from political advocacy.
Second-order effects
Companies facing consequential antitrust reviews may place greater value on political and national-security advocacy alongside traditional legal arguments, while opponents gain a basis to challenge the credibility of favorable decisions.
DOJ leadership faces pressure to make the factual and legal basis for sensitive merger decisions more legible, particularly when enforcement outcomes depart from an earlier litigation posture.
Third-order effects
If similar episodes recur, antitrust review could become more visibly intertwined with industrial-policy and national-security priorities, making merger outcomes harder for businesses and competitors to assess solely through competition-law precedent.
The durable institutional cost would be weaker confidence that enforcement is applied consistently; whether that becomes systemic depends on whether decision-making processes retain demonstrable independence and transparency.
The trend: This is one data point in the growing convergence of antitrust enforcement, national-security policy, and politically connected corporate advocacy.
This DOJ - like every DOJ - decided these antitrust cases on the facts. WSJ is falsely basing its reporting on disgruntled, fired employees who failed and consistently leaked confidential information to the media to further their own agenda against the Administration, including
“After the trial began in March, Trump began calling around to ask why it hadn't been settled. What's the holdup? he wanted to know, according to people familiar with the matter. It was an extraordinary role for a president to play in a routine antitrust investigation.”
This should deeply disturb everyone in the antitrust community. Everyone who claimed the Kanter-Khan era was politicizing antitrust has an obligation to speak out. This is dangerous stuff. White collar gangster antitrust. [image]
Trump-allied @HPE lawyer Mike Davis threatened to “destroy” DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater if she didn't approve HPE's $14B bid to acquire a rival, per a sworn deposition. Davis denies the threat. But DOJ allowed the acquisition & Slater is out of DOJ. https://www.wsj.com/...
Americans increasingly see a system rigged against them. — And as Trump continues giving the well connected the inside track, everyone else gets screwed. — Corruption is the name of the game.
love this WSJ story about how a revolving door corporate lobbyist easily destroyed the handful of almost semi-useful antitrust enforcers at Trump's DOJ — the exact opposite of what MAGA, much of the press, and Matt stoller claimed would happen under Trump 2.0 [embedded post]
As a formerly-proud DOJ Antitrust Division alum, I truly hope that a congressional inquiry, and, if appropriate, a criminal investigation, awaits Mike Davis. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...