DOJ antitrust shake-up reflects effort to define ‘MAGA antitrust’ after Slater exit
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
The Justice Department is reshuffling its antitrust leadership as the Trump administration moves to more clearly define what officials and allies have begun calling “MAGA antitrust,” an approach already taking shape at the Federal Trade Commission under Chairman Andrew Ferguson.
Former Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater left her post on Thursday after being given an ultimatum to resign or be terminated by week’s end. Her exit followed several public signs of turbulence in the antitrust division, including a since-deleted social media post announcing the removal of her chief of staff, Sara Matar, and the resignation of deputy antitrust chief Mark Hamer earlier in the week.
The antitrust division is now being led by acting chief Omeed Aseffi, who administration officials and key allies of the president expect will align the DOJ more closely with Ferguson’s enforcement-focused model and bring a more active litigation posture to the agency.
Ferguson’s ‘MAGA antitrust’ philosophy moves to center stage
Inside the administration, officials who spoke to the Washington Examiner repeatedly point to Ferguson as the intellectual and strategic “North Star” for competition policy who has “set the tone” for antitrust policy. One source pointed to figures such as Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett and the newly appointed acting chief of antitrust, Assefi, who agree with Ferguson’s approach.
In a March interview with Bloomberg just two months following Trump’s inauguration, Ferguson openly embraced the label that has come to define the administration’s direction.
“You can call it MAGA antitrust if you want,” Ferguson said, describing it as a conservative framework that rejects both laissez-faire assumptions about markets and sweeping regulatory expansion.
“We aren’t beholden to libertarian ideology about markets,” he said. “We take markets actually as they are … and we take very seriously that consumers and laborers suffer in markets short of things that just affect short-term price and output.”
Ferguson has argued that traditional economic metrics alone fail to capture real-world harms from too much market consolidation, such as reduced innovation, diminished quality, or fewer consumer options.
“The loss of innovation … or the loss of choice or product quality, even if you can’t measure it the way an economist would measure price and output, still matter to consumers and still matter to antitrust,” he said.
He has framed the approach as …
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
The Justice Department is reshuffling its antitrust leadership as the Trump administration moves to more clearly define what officials and allies have begun calling “MAGA antitrust,” an approach already taking shape at the Federal Trade Commission under Chairman Andrew Ferguson.
Former Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater left her post on Thursday after being given an ultimatum to resign or be terminated by week’s end. Her exit followed several public signs of turbulence in the antitrust division, including a since-deleted social media post announcing the removal of her chief of staff, Sara Matar, and the resignation of deputy antitrust chief Mark Hamer earlier in the week.
The antitrust division is now being led by acting chief Omeed Aseffi, who administration officials and key allies of the president expect will align the DOJ more closely with Ferguson’s enforcement-focused model and bring a more active litigation posture to the agency.
Ferguson’s ‘MAGA antitrust’ philosophy moves to center stage
Inside the administration, officials who spoke to the Washington Examiner repeatedly point to Ferguson as the intellectual and strategic “North Star” for competition policy who has “set the tone” for antitrust policy. One source pointed to figures such as Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett and the newly appointed acting chief of antitrust, Assefi, who agree with Ferguson’s approach.
In a March interview with Bloomberg just two months following Trump’s inauguration, Ferguson openly embraced the label that has come to define the administration’s direction.
“You can call it MAGA antitrust if you want,” Ferguson said, describing it as a conservative framework that rejects both laissez-faire assumptions about markets and sweeping regulatory expansion.
“We aren’t beholden to libertarian ideology about markets,” he said. “We take markets actually as they are … and we take very seriously that consumers and laborers suffer in markets short of things that just affect short-term price and output.”
Ferguson has argued that traditional economic metrics alone fail to capture real-world harms from too much market consolidation, such as reduced innovation, diminished quality, or fewer consumer options.
“The loss of innovation … or the loss of choice or product quality, even if you can’t measure it the way an economist would measure price and output, still matter to consumers and still matter to antitrust,” he said.
He has framed the approach as …
DOJ antitrust shake-up reflects effort to define ‘MAGA antitrust’ after Slater exit
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.
The Justice Department is reshuffling its antitrust leadership as the Trump administration moves to more clearly define what officials and allies have begun calling “MAGA antitrust,” an approach already taking shape at the Federal Trade Commission under Chairman Andrew Ferguson.
Former Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater left her post on Thursday after being given an ultimatum to resign or be terminated by week’s end. Her exit followed several public signs of turbulence in the antitrust division, including a since-deleted social media post announcing the removal of her chief of staff, Sara Matar, and the resignation of deputy antitrust chief Mark Hamer earlier in the week.
The antitrust division is now being led by acting chief Omeed Aseffi, who administration officials and key allies of the president expect will align the DOJ more closely with Ferguson’s enforcement-focused model and bring a more active litigation posture to the agency.
Ferguson’s ‘MAGA antitrust’ philosophy moves to center stage
Inside the administration, officials who spoke to the Washington Examiner repeatedly point to Ferguson as the intellectual and strategic “North Star” for competition policy who has “set the tone” for antitrust policy. One source pointed to figures such as Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett and the newly appointed acting chief of antitrust, Assefi, who agree with Ferguson’s approach.
In a March interview with Bloomberg just two months following Trump’s inauguration, Ferguson openly embraced the label that has come to define the administration’s direction.
“You can call it MAGA antitrust if you want,” Ferguson said, describing it as a conservative framework that rejects both laissez-faire assumptions about markets and sweeping regulatory expansion.
“We aren’t beholden to libertarian ideology about markets,” he said. “We take markets actually as they are … and we take very seriously that consumers and laborers suffer in markets short of things that just affect short-term price and output.”
Ferguson has argued that traditional economic metrics alone fail to capture real-world harms from too much market consolidation, such as reduced innovation, diminished quality, or fewer consumer options.
“The loss of innovation … or the loss of choice or product quality, even if you can’t measure it the way an economist would measure price and output, still matter to consumers and still matter to antitrust,” he said.
He has framed the approach as …
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