Gail Slater was the official put in charge of the antitrust unit within the Department of Justice, coming from JD Vance’s office and seen, per Sean Davis — a co-panelist alongside John Kiriakou on the same Megyn Kelly episode — as a “mega populist” who would translate that agenda into scrutiny of big tech and other large companies.[1]
Davis says the Bondi Department of Justice was “pretty actually bad” on antitrust, and that Slater “had all her power taken away” — firms that had reached settlements with the DOJ were able to sidestep her office and avoid the normal scrutiny that should accompany a settlement.[2] As an example, Davis cites the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, providers of Wi-Fi and networking services to stadiums and hospitals, which he says was settled with the DOJ “behind closed doors, literally over cocktails” — raising, in his account, serious legal questions.[3]
When Slater’s team objected to the settlement, one of her deputies was fired, and Slater herself was fired soon after.[4] Davis describes the episode as an example of campaign-trail populism that “cashed out as kind of crony capitalism” under Pam Bondi, and says he does not believe Bondi “did right by her.”[4]