EXCLUSIVE: Ethics Complaint Emerges After Internal Battle In Key Trump DOJ Office

A conservative organization filed a bar complaint on Friday against a former Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) official who alleged lobbyists are improperly influencing antitrust enforcement decisions.

Roger Alford, formerly the antitrust division’s second-in-command, was one of two senior officials fired in July amid an internal blowup over a settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks that allowed the companies’ merger to continue. Alford publicly criticized several officials driving the deal in August for sacrificing the “rule of law” to the “rule of lobbyists.”

The bar complaint, which alleges Alford improperly “betrayed client confidences” by voicing concerns about internal operations in a speech and op-ed, is the latest development in a battle reportedly taking place behind closed doors in the division.

“It is unclear whether Alford’s statements are true or untrue,” the complaint states, noting DOJ officials Alford accuses of improper behavior, including Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle and Associate Attorney General nominee Stanley Woodward, “likely have another side of the story.”

“However, true or not, Alford used knowledge gained in the scope of his representation of the DOJ to advocate that a court of law issue a ruling against the position of his former client,” the complaint filed by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) continues.

The DOJ’s antitrust division declined to comment on Alford’s allegations or the bar complaint. Alford and Mizelle did not respond to requests for comment.

The DOJ initially sued in January to block the $14 billion acquisition deal between the technology companies, which Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater said at the time would result in “large segments of the American economy paying more for less from wireless technology providers.”

Slater, who the Senate confirmed to lead the division in March, articulated her vision for an “America First Antitrust” policy that protects “individual liberty from the tyranny of monopoly,” adheres to the rule of law and supports deregulation during an April speech.

“We will stand for America’s forgotten consumers,” she said. “We will stand for America’s forgotten workers. And we will stand for the small businesses and innovators, from Little Tech, to manufacturing, to family farms, that were forgotten by our economic policies for too long.”

Alford expressed concern lobbyists would derail this effort, including Trump’s antitrust goals of “reforming health care, addressing monopoly abuses, promoting deregulation, and helping renters, farmers and blue-collar workers.”

“For thirty pieces of silver, MAGA-In-Name-Only lobbyists are influencing their allies within the DOJ and risking President Trump’s populist conservative agenda,” Alford said during an Aug. 18 speech at the Tech Policy Institute Aspen Forum.

Alford was previously a high-level official in the DOJ’s antitrust division during Trump’s first term and has now returned as a professor at Notre Dame Law School. He also advised Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on his antitrust case against Google.

His experience during Trump’s first term was “nothing remotely” like the second, he said in the speech, laying blame on a small set of senior leaders who allegedly overstepped Slater to grant “special favors.”

Mizelle allegedly “accepts party meetings and makes key decisions depending on whether the request or information comes from a MAGA friend,” Alford said in his speech.

“Aware of this injustice, companies are hiring lawyers and influence peddlers to bolster their MAGA credentials and pervert traditional law enforcement,” he said.

A DOJ spokesperson previously called Alford’s Aug. 18 comments the “delusional musings of a disgruntled ex,” labeling him “the James Comey of antitrust – pursuing blind self-promotion and ego, while ignoring reality,” according to severalreports.

After the settlement was announced, Mizelle celebrated it as “another key legal victory from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division.”

“Our attorneys will continue fighting and winning to defend the American people and consumers,” Mizelle said in a statement.

CASA’s complaint alleges Alford “discarded his obligations as an attorney when he delivered a speech and wrote an op-ed that betrayed client confidences and disadvantaged his former client,” urging the D.C. Bar to investigate.

“In doing so, he let his desire to score political points against the DOJ and rehabilitate his own image overshadow his ethical duties as an attorney,” the complaint continues. “An attorney’s duty of confidentiality to a client does not change when the relationship with the client sours or ends.”

CASA’s Director James Fitzpatrick served in the U.S. Department of Labor during the first Trump administration and provided legal counsel to Republican candidates during the 2024 election, including Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick and President Donald Trump. The organization’s mission is “improving the safety and security of the American people,” according to its website.

“Although these egregious attempts to damage the administration’s reputation failed, Alford’s actions should be immediately investigated by the D.C. Bar,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement to the DCNF.

Conservative attorneys who have faced bar complaints — largely from left-wing groups — have in other situations criticized the D.C. Bar for bias.

The D.C. Bar Board on Professional Responsibility issued a report in July that recommended disbarring Jeffrey Clark. Clark, who currently leads regulatory review at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), came under scrutiny for a letter he drafted while serving at the DOJ during Trump’s first term that suggested there was outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election.

An OMB spokesperson responded to the news in July by telling the DCNF that the D.C. Bar is a “disgrace.”

Weaponization Working Group head Ed Martin told the DCNF in May he may look into bar associations for targeting conservative attorneys, voicing concern about the “weaponization of the bar associations against lawyers.”

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