The Department of Justice (DOJ) has fired two top officials from its antitrust division for insubordination, an agency spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
Roger Alford, principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Bill Rinner, deputy assistant attorney general and head of merger enforcement, were both let go from their roles in the administration.
The firings, first reported by CBS News, come amid growing internal disagreements within the DOJ’s antitrust division.
The division is responsible for handling several of the administration’s most high-profile antitrust cases, including two lawsuits against Google and another against Apple.
It has reportedly been plagued by tensions over its merger policy. The DOJ has cleared the way for several mergers in recent weeks, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks and T-Mobile’s $4.4 billion acquisition of UScellular.
However, the HPE-Juniper settlement was only approved after Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff stepped in and overruled the head of the antitrust division, Gail Slater, CBS News reported.
The DOJ sued over the $14 billion acquisition in January, shortly after President Trump took office. The decision marked a key point of alignment with the Biden administration, which had been preparing to challenge the merger.
The administration has generally maintained an aggressive approach toward antitrust enforcement in Trump’s second term in office. Despite an effort by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to lobby for a settlement, the Federal Trade Commission went ahead with its trial against the social media giant in April.
Several Senate Democrats sent a letter to the judge overseeing the HPE-Juniper case on Monday, voicing concerns over the DOJ’s proposed settlement.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) called for the judge to hold an evidentiary hearing to “determine whether the settlement is in the public interest.”
They argued the settlement fails to address the antitrust concerns raised in the DOJ’s initial complaint, while underscoring recent reporting that the antitrust division was sidelined and that HPE and Juniper retained lobbyists connected to the White House and attorney general’s office.
“The Justice Department must stand as the lawyers for the entire United States,” the senators wrote. “A settlement to resolve the challenge to HPE’s proposed acquisition of Juniper should not be made on the backs of the American people while enriching well-connected lobbyists.”
