The division’s major accomplishments over the last year will leave an important legacy.
Last year at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division was a remarkably consequential period for competition policy: the United States v. Google search remedies trial that led to data-sharing with internet search rivals; the RealPage action that barred the company from giving landlords real-time competitor pricing data to set rents; the historic conditions set on the merger of Constellation and Calpine; preparing to rein in the monopolistic practices of Live Nation–Ticketmaster. The Justice Department antitrust team sent a clear message that free market competition is important and that antitrust is the essential backstop on free markets.
Again, competition is important. It is the basis for our American economy—what inspires innovation and provides opportunities for workers. With artificial intelligence and other technologies reshaping our economy, now is a vital time to get competition policy right.
That is why I believe that what my team and I did during my tenure, and what I learned along the way, can provide guidance and a playbook for those at both the state and federal level—including the U.S. Congress and the Trump Administration—who have the responsibility to ensure that policies and enforcement actions are fixed on fostering competition.
When I took office in March 2025, I found a whiteboard in the small conference room next to my office in the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building. Early in my tenure, I wrote a single sentence on the whiteboard to remind the front office team of our core mission: “Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing.” For me, this call to action demanded sorting the signal from the noise when selecting and prioritizing cases at the Antitrust Division. The whiteboard reminded us of this weighty responsibility as we gathered for our team meetings.
Our commitment was clear on the day that the President announced his intention to nominate me in December, 2024. That announcement gave clear direction to pursue Big Tech. We took on cases such as United States v. Google, filed in the final year of his first term. Throughout 2025, we received further signals regarding various Administration policy priorities, and we followed those orders. This included enforcing the antitrust laws in live entertainment markets and investigating the Big Four meat packers. Our goal was balanced policy, tackling cases where competition was stifled but also working, in collaboration with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to streamline government regulations that can act as barriers to legitimate entry and competition across the economy.
But what of the cases where we did not have clear Administration policy in place? That balance required separating the signal from the noise. For example, we had to ask ourselves whether a potential case really affected the average American. I had committed at my confirmation hearing to focusing our resources on pocketbook markets that impacted household budgets. And we also had to sort the cases that could be settled from those that could not.
There is a tendency among some to assume that “Big is Bad” when it comes to antitrust enforcement—that a merger with a high sticker price must be problematic or that a company’s large share of its own market must signal an ability to engage in monopolistic conduct that should be litigated. This, of course, is noise. The signal lies in finding high impact cases that could be settled or brought to trial as appropriate, regardless of their size or media profile. I committed during my tenure to settling cases on sound terms when appropriate. Settling cases on sound and robust terms is just good government. A good settlement brings relief to consumers today, rather than four or five years from now. A good settlement also averts the need for a costly trial and the uncertainty of litigation—after all, the government does not always win in court.
The settlement in RealPage v. United States is an example of our principles in action. I firmly believe that the RealPage settlement is as good as anything we would have secured through a lengthy and expensive trial. Furthermore, the settlement gave U.S. consumers relief and more effective competition in a key pocketbook market today, not five years from now. The settlement in Constellation’s merger with Calpine was another effective settlement. For the first time in 14 years, the Antitrust Division negotiated a court-approved settlement—known as a consent decree—in a merger case that included divestitures of six power plants, clearing the rest of this $26 billion deal to close. The divestitures addressed competitive risks in key electricity markets, ensuring that smaller generators could compete on equal footing. The action was important because it preserved competition in a key pocketbook market for American consumers, electricity.
Not every case is like RealPage or Constellation–Calpine. Some cases needed to go to trial, and still others needed to be resolved at a remedies trial, where a court considers how to remedy a proven antitrust violation. The two Google cases—United States v. Google in 2020 and United States v. Google in 2023—fell in this latter category. Although we were not involved in the phase of each case that established Google’s liability, we oversaw the remedies trials in both. The 2025 trial in United States v. Google, also known as the Google Search remedies trial, was the first out the gate on our watch. Much ink was spilled on the inclusion of a Chrome browser divestiture in the Justice Department’s proposed remedies, the goal being to free up search data needed for rivals to scale. This remedy was one path to this end state, but the remedies ordered by the judge fulfilled the same goal by requiring Google to share search data with competitors and not enter into exclusive dealing agreements. This lather, rinse, repeat cycle is key to success and growth in the internet search market. And in perhaps the most consequential part of the ruling, the judge future-proofed his decision when he included generative artificial intelligence within the remedies’ scope.
Another case we brought to trial early last year was United States v. Lopez, where a home healthcare staffing executive was accused of conspiring with several competitors to fix the wages of home health nurses in the Las Vegas area, as well as defrauding the buyer of his company by concealing an ongoing antitrust investigation. The previous Administration tried to criminally prosecute employee no-poach agreements and wage fixing several times. This made pursuing Lopez a high-risk decision. We prevailed at trial and won a guilty verdict on behalf of the hard-working nurses in Las Vegas affected by the defendant’s conduct.
My team believed that the department should go to trial in United States v. Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster. In March 2025, the President signed an Executive Order directing the Justice Department to “ensure that competition laws are appropriately enforced in the concert and entertainment industry, including where venues, ticketing agents, or combinations thereof operate to the detriment of artists and fans.” We followed this Executive Order and prepared the Live Nation monopolization case for trial before a jury in Manhattan. This case is popular on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and has support from no fewer than 40 state attorneys general. The Antitrust Division has twice tried to fix competition issues in the live entertainment market, but both consent decrees failed. Again, some cases just need to go to trial. We shall see if the third time will be the charm for the remaining states who chose to proceed to trial in the wake of the DOJ’s recent settlement announcement.
Each case builds on the last. When federal and state officials make it clear that monopolistic and anti-competitive practices will be prosecuted, it sends an important message to business leaders who—let us face it—often try to get away with what they can. What we did was sen a message, and I firmly expect that even 20 years from now, the cases we took on and the body of antitrust law they built up will resonate.
But for that to happen, we need a well-funded Antitrust Division. My efforts to ensure that funding for future Justice Department antitrust officials is truly one of my proudest accomplishments. I entered my role in the era of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE created significant operational uncertainty across government, and the Antitrust Division was no exception. As the saying goes, “the only certainty is uncertainty.” It was true in the past, and it remains true today.
Uncertainty creates both risk and opportunity. The risk I saw in early 2025 was the impact of DOGE on the Antitrust Division’s ability to operate, or what former FTC Chairman William Kovacic calls “institutional capacity.” To be clear, I was and remain very supportive of fiscal responsibility. The country is $38 trillion in debt. In my day-one email to the Antitrust Division, I spoke directly to the need to tighten our belts consistent with Administration policy when I called out our ballooning budget for external consultants. I wrote, “One area we can prioritize is the amount we spend on outside economic consultants, and I have asked senior leadership to investigate this. We have world class economists in-house, and we can and should utilize and maximize their talents before seeking outside help.” At the same time, the Antitrust Division is uniquely situated within the Justice Department because it is a profit center, not a cost center. I leaned hard into this important difference as I advocated the Antitrust Division’s budget to remain intact heading into the DOGE era.
I was laser-focused on advocating that our field offices remain open and operating. The Chicago office was particularly near to my heart. During my Senate confirmation process, I heard a lot about the need to focus our resources on competition in the agriculture sector. President Trump echoed this sentiment when he directed us to look at the “Big 4” meat packers last November. Agriculture is America’s heartland, and running our beef or egg investigations from a coastal office did not make sense. Keeping our Chicago office was necessary for these investigations. As Bill Kovacic would say, “structure shapes substance.”
I invoked this important agriculture work as we advocated our budget internally at the Justice Department, the White House, and on Capitol Hill. I will be eternally grateful that our advocacy worked: we not only secured the largest increase in the Antitrust Division’s budget in a decade but kept the excess filing fees from proposed mergers for the first time since 2022.
DOGE’s works also presented an opportunity to spotlight the unsung work of the division’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force. The group launched to little fanfare in 2019 with the goal of bringing enforcement actions against criminal antitrust conduct in government procurement markets—markets for winning contracts with the government. These markets account for roughly 14 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, but they are rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. As I read into the strike force’s mandate, I soon realized it was in fact “DOGE for Antitrust,” and that is how I talked about it publicly.
One defendant in a case drove a lime green sports car with a trunk loaded up with weapons and other contraband. The strike force brought his conduct to justice, and to say this case was a crowd pleaser is an understatement. When we posted short videos about the case on social media, the content invariably went viral because ordinary Americans could see we were working hard to make our “DOGE for antitrust” a reality. Americans are tired of their taxpayer money disappearing into a black hole, and this work made a dent in their universe. This public support for the strike force’s work spurred a reaction internally, and the program now accounts for 50 percent of the Antitrust Division’s open investigations, underscoring how important the work is.
The Whistleblower Rewards Program that we launched in partnership with the United States Postal Service will also have profound consequences. This antitrust tool will bring to light conduct such as price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market allocation. Under the program, individuals with inside knowledge of criminal antitrust violations who come forward with information that leads to successful enforcement actions can receive a monetary reward. In January, we announced the first award under the program: a $1 million payment. This payment was a strong signal to the market that “cash for cartels” is here to stay.
During my tenure, I never lost sight of the fact that everyone in public service is a temporary fixture. We are stewards of our offices. All we can hope is that during our tenure, we make a difference. I am honored and proud of our impact—our signal.
In 20 years, I believe the past year at the Justice Department Antitrust Division will be remembered for that signal, not the noise. The signal is the results we achieved. These results include the RealPage settlement, Google cases, and Live Nation, but I am equally proud of outcomes that many might see as trees falling in the forest.
When competition officials set a tone, it cascades. For example, earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused to hear Duke Energy Carolinas v. NTE Carolinas. By doing so, the Court upheld the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s ruling that if a company’s conduct has anticompetitive effects, that alone might be sufficient evidence of unlawful monopolization, without needing each act to be unlawful on its own. The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case signified to the Antitrust Division that its hard slog of monopolization cases in recent years has affected monopolization law at the highest levels. Similarly, the United States v. Visa, United States v. Apple, and United States v. Agri Stats cases passed procedural hurdles. A decade ago, these decisions might have been scrutinized in minute detail, such was the level of monopolization enforcement at the time. But in June 2025 alone, two of these cases, Apple and Visa, handily survived motions to dismiss. The signal from these incremental monopolization decisions will be long remembered after the noise has faded.
I would be remiss without taking a moment to honor the Antitrust Division’s world class appellate team for its careful work on these and other cases. The team’s briefs were always exquisite and their brilliance beyond dispute, as was their dedication to public service. I called the Section 2 appellate and trial teams, which handle monopolization cases within the division, the Antitrust “Guardians of the Galaxy” for a reason, and I meant it. And they are not alone.
What I am most proud of during my tenure is that I never compromised on principles. I made decisions based on what I thought was best for American competition and consumers. The inevitable noise was not my concern—remember, a public servant is a temporary fixture and a steward for others. The noise is now quiet, while the signal persists.
You cannot serve as the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department without caring deeply about the future of competition and American consumers. My commitment to competition policy began long before my Justice Department service and will continue long after. I intend to apply the lessons I learned and continue to play a constructive role in shaping the competition principles that make our economy innovative and vibrant—because that is what Americans need. What happens at Main Justice matters to each of us. And each of us should expect Main Justice to preserve the principle of fairness for all, not just for the well-connected.
