The Dictatorship
How DOJ approval of a corporate merger has exposed a rift in the MAGA movement
Last month, senior Justice Department officials overruled their subordinates and allowed a major corporate merger to go forward after the companies hired well-connected Trump supporters to lobby the government, sparking allegations of influence peddling.
Some might say that’s just another day in the second Trump administration — but this controversy feels different for a few reasons.
The antitrust settlement, obscure to most people, led to the firing of two senior political appointees within the Justice Department and has deepened a rift among MAGA activists — one of whom publicly blasted the decision as corrupt before taking down her post.
Unlike most allegations of wrongdoing levied against the Trump administration, these seem likely to be independently investigated by a federal judge with the power to put people under oath.
Unlike most allegations of wrongdoing levied against the Trump administration, these seem likely to be independently investigated by a federal judge with the power to put people under oath.
“This is huge deal, and we are only at the beginning,” a former senior DOJ official said.
At issue is a case that looms large in the business world — a fight over a proposed $14 billion merger between computer giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise and rival Juniper Networks, both of which make and sell wireless networking equipment.
Justice Department lawyers first determined the merger was illegal on antitrust grounds because it would stifle competition. Just after Trump took office in January, the DOJ sued to block it. But last month, on the eve of trial, the Justice Department settled the case, allowing the merger to go forward over the opposition of senior antitrust lawyers inside the department, three former DOJ officials familiar with the matter said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two top political appointees in the antitrust division were fired after an internal power struggle over the deal, and two career lawyers who worked on the case resigned, according to the sources. One of them, Roger Alford, posted his termination notice on LinkedIn.
The two fired lawyers worked for the DOJ’s antitrust chief, Gail Slater, who has been labeled the face of a robust MAGA faction that favors strong enforcement of antitrust laws.
Neither Slater nor any other DOJ antitrust lawyer signed the settlementwhich was instead inked by two senior aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi — Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle and Stanley Woodward, who has been nominated to be associate attorney general. Former DOJ officials say lawyers in the division almost always sign the case filings, and that the lack of their signature if a red flag.
The DOJ’s change of position came after HPE and Juniper acknowledged in court filings that the companies retained Mike Davis, a lawyer and MAGA activist who has advised the Trump administration on judicial nominations and other legal issues. The filings say the companies also hired Will Levi, who served as a senior Justice Department official in the first Trump administration.
People familiar with the matter tell BLN that Arthur Schwartz, a consultant with deep MAGA ties, was also making the case for the merger. Davis declined to comment, and Levi and Schwartz did not respond to requests for comment. Schwartz was not listed in corporate filings, so it’s unclear who was paying him.
MAGA activist Laura Loomer, who has traveled with President Trump, criticized the arrangement in an extraordinary post on X that she later took down.
“Now that @ChadMizelle47 has made it clear that he is open for business at the DOJ to the highest bidder, other consultants are now putting big price tags on their lobby efforts to influence the DOJ to settle even more anti-Trust cases,” Loomer wrote.
“Insider trading? Influence peddling for million dollar contracts? Unregistered MAGA lobbyists? Why is @AGPamBondi, who is supposedly running the DOJ, allowing this kind of grift to take place under the supervision of her boy @ChadMizelle47? Why is she trying to create scandals for the Trump admin?”
Loomer’s comments reflect a faction of the MAGA movement that takes to heart Trump’s promise to drain the Washington swamp —a group deeply suspicious of the tech industry and corporate power in general.
Interestingly, another person who has sometimes espoused those views is Davis, who praised the lawsuit when it was filed in January.
Democratic senators have seized on the case as an example of possible misconduct.
“We are dismayed by allegations that officials in the Antitrust Division may have been sidelined because they opposed the backroom negotiations that led to this settlement,” wrote senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Cory Booker, D-N.J. and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. to Judge P. Casey Pitts of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on July 29.
“Unfortunately, it appears the settlement does not in fact address the concerns DOJ cited as the basis for its January 30 challenge,” the senators noted in their letter, adding that the circumstances of the settlement raise the question of “whether the settlement advances the interests of the public or a well-connected, well-paid group of insiders.”
Requests by Democrats for investigations are a dime a dozen these days, and they have tended to go nowhere. But in this case, the judge presiding over the legal case has extraordinary authority to conduct a probe.
In some past cases, judges have held what amounted to a mini trial in exercising their authority under the Tunney Act.
Under the Tunney Act, a law passed in the wake of a Nixon-era antitrust scandal, Biden-appointed Judge Pitts of the Northern District of California has leeway to thoroughly examine the Justice Department settlement to ensure it’s in the public interest. The judge is allowed to require the production of documents and witness testimony. In some past casesjudges have held what amounted to a mini trial in exercising their authority under the Tunney Act.
The settlement will allow the merger to go forward while requiring HPE to make what industry insiders are calling an unrelated divestment of part of its wireless networking business.
The three former Justice Department officials who are experts in antitrust law — and who declined to be named because they said they feared retaliation — told BLN the settlement did little to resolve concerns internally at DOJ that the merger will harm customers by reducing competition.
If a Tunney Act proceeding goes forward, key figures in Trump world may have to discuss their change of heart under oath. And senior Justice Department officials may have to explain why they adopted his point of view, over the objections of the career experts.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department dismissed another antitrust lawsuit that sought to block a merger between American Express Global Business Travel and CWT Holdings, a case the Antitrust Division filed in mid-January at the end of the Biden administration. But because that lawsuit was dismissed outright instead of settled, the Tunney Act does not apply, and no judge will be able to review what led to the decision.
“I don’t remember that ever happening,” a former DOJ antitrust lawyer said. “The Anti-trust Division has enormous power, and when they bring a case, they usually have the goods.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that’s part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
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Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S. agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.
But it’s rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Wednesday marks four years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Dobbs decisionwhich effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. On “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski explained how the ruling set off a domino effect across the United States, affecting not just abortion-related care, but also altering “the state of women’s healthcare as a whole.”
As Brzezinski noted, states across the country have enacted harsher abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, with 13 outright banning the procedure with very limited exceptions. This has created a climate of fear among those who treat pregnant patients, with many healthcare providers worrying that any care involving an abortion could violate the law, even when the mother’s health is at risk.
“We are talking about people dying when they’re miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to intervene and save their lives,” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for The Nation, told MS NOW.
Brzezinski said the laws have effectively limited women’s “access to lifesaving healthcare.”
The MS NOW host reflected on some high-profile stories of pregnant women who faced delayed care in states with near-total abortion bans, noting “the numbers of cases that we’ve covered here on the show of women who have had their lives threatened, have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies, and then, by the way, denied the access to ever create life again, because they became sterilized in the process.”
“There’s an image I can’t get out of my head,” Brzezinski added, before sharing reporting from ProPublica about Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother who died in Texas in 2023 after not receiving timely care for a miscarriage.
“For months afterward, Porsha’s 3-year-old son would chase after women who looked like her on the street, shouting, ‘That’s Mommy!’” Brzezinski said. “That’s the detail I can’t forget. I can’t stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers on the street. And that story repeats itself.”
You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
One of the biggest upsets in Tuesday night’s primaries came in New York’s 13th Congressional District, where Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old democratic socialist, managed to beat incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, 71, who was backed by establishment Democrats.
Chevalier, a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York, secured 49.4% of votes in the district — which encompasses upper Manhattan, Harlem and parts of the Bronx — defeating Espaillat, who received about 46% of the votes after representing the district for nearly a decade, according to The Associated Press. She now advances to the November general election, which she is presumed to win in the solidly Democratic district.
Chevalier’s primary win marks a major win for the Democrats’ left-wing flank that backed her, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdaniwho endorsed Chevalier last month during a joint interview on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Here is what to know about Chevalier and the platform she campaigned on.
She has never held elected office
Prior to her congressional campaign, Chevalier had never run or held elected office. But she has been involved with advocating for issues that became political flashpoints, including helping organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University, according to her biography on the website of the Justice Democratsthe progressive group that recruited her to run.
The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Chevalier also worked as an organizer for Families for Freedom, a New York City group that assists immigrants facing deportation.
Chevalier earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from Columbia University in 2016 and later worked as a paralegal, according to her LinkedIn.
Chevalier faced scrutiny during her campaign over previously articulated stances and incendiary comments, including her appearance at a Times Square rally the day after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, where attendees reportedly suggested the attack was justified.
At a March candidates’ forum, Chevalier declined to condemn Hamas, saying that a request to do so “ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that that folks were living under before this genocide began,” the local outlet City & State reported. Later, on local radio station WNYC, Chevalier said she did condemn Hamas when asked, adding, “As far as I know, the U.S. does not send a single dime to Hamas. What we fund is the Israeli military.”
In a series of since-deleted social media posts between 2018 and 2022Chevalier also used expletives to refer to former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic National Committee, calling for abolishing borders and stopping all deportations, according to BLN. Other reports noted that she called former President Joe Biden a “rapist” and disparaged white people in some of her posts.
Chevalier has said she has “grown considerably” since writing those posts and that she regrets them. Mamdani defended her after the social media posts surfaced but said he was unaware of them before endorsing Chevalier.
She’s the left’s preferred candidate
Chevalier’s focus on affordability, expanding housing access and opposing war and deportations made her the preferred candidate of many progressive groups. In addition to the endorsements from Mamdani and the Justice Democrats, she was also backed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and several progressive members of the New York City Council.
After her primary win, the Democratic establishment also seems to have rallied behind her, despite her previous expletive-laden critiques of them.
In a statement Tuesday, DNC Chair Ken Martin called Chevalier “a tireless advocate for the hard-working people of New York City” who “will fight for healthcare, affordable housing, public education, civil rights, and an economy that works for everyone.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
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