In an article for NBC published Thursday, journalist Ken Dilanian noted that senior Justice Department (DOJ) officials’ greenlighting of a major corporate merger has created rifts within the MAGA movement.
The involved companies hired operatives aligned with President Donald Trump to lobby the Justice Department to reverse a longstanding internal antitrust position, setting off firestorms about what MAGA activist Laura Loomer — also an informal personnel advisor to President Donald Trump — described as “influence peddling” in a series of deleted tweets.
Last month, the DOJ abruptly reversed its opposition to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks. Dilanian argued that this reversal on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks merger is highly unusual because it involved overruling internal career lawyers in favor of politically connected outsiders.
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He noted in the article that originally, career antitrust lawyers had sued to block the deal in January, arguing it would stifle competition in the enterprise WLAN market, where the merged company would control over 70% of the market alongside Cisco.
On the eve of trial, DOJ leadership settled the suit, requiring HPE to divest its Instant On business and license Juniper’s Mist AI technology, allowing the merger to proceed.
The settlement triggered major internal strife: two senior DOJ antitrust officials, Roger Alford and Bill Rinner, were fired, and two career attorneys resigned. They had aligned with Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, who had opposed the deal and argued for maintaining prosecutorial independence.
The DOJ’s position shifted after HPE and Juniper disclosed retaining MAGA-aligned lobbyists and lawyers, including Mike Davis and Will Levi, both former DOJ insiders, as well as consultant Arthur Schwartz, known for his alliances with Vice President JD Vance.
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Critics see these hires as efforts to pressure the Trump DOJ leadership into approving the merger. Loomer sharply attacking the arrangement on X, before later deleting the posts.
“Now that @ChadMizelle47 has made it clear that he is open for business at the DOJ to the highest bidder … Insider trading? Influence peddling for million dollar contracts? Unregistered MAGA lobbyists? … Why is @AGPamBondi … allowing this kind of grift to take place under the supervision of her boy @ChadMizelle47?”
While her post has since been deleted, but the language and allegations remain intact and were widely reported.
According to Axios, U.S. intelligence officials and the White House played a decisive role in flipping the DOJ decision, citing national security concerns over China’s Huawei dominance in AI-driven networking infrastructure.
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