At Subcommittee Hearing, Former Trump Administration Official Explains How Antitrust Enforcement in America Has Become Corrupt and Politicized and Americans Are Paying the Price

Washington, D.C. (December 17, 2025)— Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Becca Balint led Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Democrats in a hearing examining how under President Trump, corruption and favoritism is replacing law and facts as the cornerstones of the government’s antitrust agenda.  

The hearing featured testimony from Professor Roger P. Alford, Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School and Former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice under President Trump, serving during both the first and second Trump Administrations. He is only the second Trump Administration official to testify before the Committee this Congress. Professor Alford was fired months after assuming his role as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division for what the Department described as “insubordination” after blowing the whistle internally on the DOJ’s corrupt approval of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise–Juniper Networks merger. He criticized today’s hearing as “another manifestation of efforts to politicize antitrust enforcement.”  

“The MAGA lobbyists are shameless in their self-promotion, aware that their window of opportunity is short and closing fast. Press reports reveal the pervasive practice of lobbyists attempting to corruptly influence antitrust law enforcement. […] MAGA lobbyists reportedly are liberally pitching their services to clients, stating that for a mere $225,000 a month per client, these lobbyists will go above and around the Antitrust Division to lobby their cases and even seek to have Attorney General Gail Slater removed from her Senate-confirmed position,” said Professor Alford in his opening remarks.

The hearing also included testimony from Mr. Dirk Auer, Director of Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics; Professor Aurelien Portuese, Professor and Founding Director. George Washington Competition & Innovation Lab, GW Institute of Public Policy; and Mr. Shanker A. Singham, CEO, Competere Ltd.

Antitrust enforcement has become corrupt under President Trump.

• Ranking Member Raskin said: “Under this Administration, merger review has turned into one more instrument for corruption, a way for the President to reward his rich insider friends and punish companies he dislikes—including news companies that have been critical of his Administration. Antitrust enforcement is now driven by pay-to-play corruption, political favoritism and retaliation, and bribery instead of the facts and the legal standards. It is not the public interest that controls outcomes, but the President’s political and financial interests.”
   
• Ranking Member Raskin said: “The DOJ manual begins by stating, ‘the legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence.’ Can you share with the Judiciary Committee what you saw as the second most senior political appointee at the Antitrust Division of DOJ, relevant to that principle?” Professor Alford, a former top official in the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division under Trump, explained: “As has been publicly reported, lobbyists are pervasively involved in every level of the Department of Justice, trying to influence the outcomes not based on the merits, but based on relationships that these lobbyists have with particular individuals in power.”
   
• Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García said: “It turns out that Trump was not running to be commander in chief. He was running to be lobbyist in chief for big tech. There was a reason why the tech CEOs were grinning in the front row at Trump’s inauguration. They had him in his in their pocket. They knew that he would sell out American workers and consumers, and they were right.”
   
• Rep. Becca Balint said: “While our own government prosecutes American Big Tech companies for breaking the law and our Senate colleagues advance measure to hold Big Tech accountable, we are apparently supposed to criticize other countries for doing the exact thing that Americans want us to be doing. Countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and the EU, did what we did. They studied the digital market, found dominant tech companies abusing their power and stifling competition, and then crafted rules and brought lawsuits.”
   
• Rep. Balint said: “The Majority argues that antitrust rules for dominant big tech in other countries are discriminatory. And, you know, they claim it’s anti-American and we don’t have any jurisdiction over foreign countries. What this hearing is really about, and as my Ranking Member has said, is about trying to stop long-standing bipartisan efforts to hold big tech accountable. Professor Alford, does the EU’s Digital Markets Act resemble bills that this subcommittee advanced in the 117th Congress?” Professor Alford affirmed: “Yes it does. There were a whole spate of bills, particularly in 2022, that addressed concerns about these different monopoly abuses and a whole variety of different sectors. Those bills were bipartisan in nature. They were voted out of committees, but with supermajority numbers, and Senators Grassley, Blumenthal, Lee and others like that were very, very prominent proponents of those of those bills.”
   
• Rep. Balint said: “Americans of both parties see this and they don’t like it. They want us to fight back. We should be doing all we can to address the real and present dangers that monopolies, especially media and tech monopolies, pose to our markets, our wallets, to consumers, to competitors, and to our democracy.”

Countries around the world, including the U.S., are addressing dominant technology companies.

The politicization of antitrust enforcement in the U.S. under the Trump Administration is deleterious to ensuring a competitive market and a democratic government in addition to ensuring other nations enforce the law fairly.

Ranking Member Raskin asked: “What’s the greater threat today to a healthy and competitive U.S. economy? Corruption in our own antitrust agencies or foreign countries? Enforcement of their antitrust laws?” Professor Alford explained: “I would say the former of the concern for protecting the U.S. market is absolutely critical to the American people. And what we want in the United States is vigorous antitrust enforcement that will protect the average American. And that is being undermined now in light of the undue influence of lobbyists.”