Trump Suddenly Fires TOP DOJ Official

Summary

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Legal AF by MeidasTouch

Episode: Trump Suddenly Fires TOP DOJ Official

Host: Michael Popok (MeidasTouch Network)
Date: February 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Michael Popok delivers an incisive, rapid-response analysis of Donald Trump’s sudden firing of Abigail Slater—the chief of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division—and explains how this move fits into a pattern of politicization and corruption at the Department of Justice under the Trump administration. The discussion unpacks the connections between Slater’s dismissal, ongoing high-stakes media mergers, and the ever-tightening grip of Trump's allies over federal regulatory power. Popok traces the deeper implications for consumers and the rule of law, warning of a Justice Department fully captured by presidential and corporate interests.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Abigail Slater’s Firing—Context and Motive

• Popok outlines the high-profile firing:
  • “Heads continue to roll at the Department of Justice following Pam Bondi’s immolation and embarrassing and unhinged performance in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Except it’s not Pam Bondi’s head. They just fired Abigail Slater…” (02:08)
  • Slater, a career antitrust lawyer and consumer protection advocate, was dismissed abruptly after just 11 months as head of DOJ Antitrust.
  • The firing coincides with other sudden DOJ removals and follows closely on the heels of staff reshuffles after Pam Bondi’s public misstep.

2. Media Mega-Mergers, Antitrust, and Trump’s Conflict of Interest

• Antitrust issues at the center:

  • Popok explains antitrust as the DOJ’s responsibility to ensure corporations can’t stifle competition, raise prices, or dominate markets unfairly (03:43).
  • Abigail Slater had been described as uncompromising, directly challenging industry consolidation—including the controversial Warner Brothers-Netflix/Paramount/CNN deal and tech giants like Apple and Google.
  • Trump is heavily invested, both personally and through his relationships with parties vying in these mergers, especially the Ellison family (owners of Oracle and close Trump associates).

• Trump’s direct and indirect intervention:

  • “Donald Trump has his big fat thumb on the scale because he wants the Ellison family … to acquire Warner Brothers and get their hands on CNN, giving Donald Trump yet another non-independent media company under his control…” (05:25)
  • Trump has made public statements dodging responsibility while telegraphing that DOJ would handle it—meaning, under his control (06:54).

  Notable Quote:

  • Trump: “I haven’t been involved, I must say … but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.” (06:54)

• Popok interprets Trump’s moves:

  • “…she was canned as a … to get her out of the way for Donald Trump to influence and try to award the prize of CNN and Warner Brothers assets to the Ellison family. I mean, it couldn’t be any clearer than that.” (07:24)

3. Pattern of Corruption at DOJ

• Firing of other officials and the significance:

  • Popok details a series of recent dismissals—highlighting a US Attorney for the Northern District of New York who lasted only 24 hours (02:42).
  • “We just had one replaced. After 24 hours, the leading attorney prosecutor for one of the 93 federal districts made it 24 hours.” (13:58)
  • Abigail Slater’s firing follows the same logic: removing those who don’t toe the Trump line in favor of unqualified, loyalist, or compromised figures.

• Tim Lewecki pardon as a signal:

  • Trump recently pardoned Tim Lewecki, convicted for bid-rigging—a case prosecuted by Slater’s own DOJ antitrust team (08:03).
  • The pardon—along with the firing—displays Trump’s willingness to overrule law enforcement in favor of personal or political allies.

  Popok’s analysis:

  • “If Abigail Slater didn’t know her time was up, then she certainly knows it now.” (08:35)

• Slater’s record of independent enforcement:

  • Aggressively targeted Apple (despite Trump’s friendship with Tim Cook), Google/YouTube, Paramount (Ellison family), and more.
  • “She’s gone after Google and successfully went after them related to ads that you see on Google and YouTube. And we know that Google and YouTube are big supporters of Donald Trump as well.” (10:46)

4. Infiltration of Lobbyists & Accountability Erosion

• DOJ Antitrust now open to lobbyist influence:

  • Popok stresses that under Trump, business lobbyists have been permitted direct influence inside Antitrust—a historical first. Slater fought this, but it contributed to her downfall (12:12).

  Notable Quote from Popok:

  • “Earlier in the year, we reported on lobbyists. This has never happened in the history of the Antitrust division … But to Donald Trump, everything is transactional, right? Everything is commercial. And so he allowed, and Slater put an end to it, lobbyists to get inside of the Antitrust division…” (12:12)

• Elizabeth Warren reacts:

  • Senator Warren calls Slater’s termination “corruption again in our midst.”
  • Popok echoes this, labeling DOJ “the most corrupt Department of Justice, completely captured by the presidency, completely captured by a criminal president.” (13:06)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Popok on Purpose of Antitrust:
  “…when a major cell phone company acquires a competitor and gets a large market share, that means they have the ability through market muscle to raise prices and there’s no competitor to balance it off right…The antitrust division of the Department of Justice… stops that.” (03:43)
• Popok on Trump’s Pattern:
  “…this is indicative of a broader disease and corruption and cancer within the Department of Justice. Name: Donald Trump and Pam Bondi.” (13:58)
• On the unprecedented churn:
  “…the shelf life for U.S. attorneys, apparently, 24 hours.” (14:19)
• On the impact for consumers:
  “…this is about the American consumer now not having anyone to push back against Donald Trump’s efforts to raise prices…you and me and the American consumer.” (02:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:08 – Popok opens with breaking news of Abigail Slater’s firing, background, and implications.
• 03:43 – Explanation of the antitrust division’s function and recent high-profile cases.
• 05:25 – Trump’s personal interest in the Warner Brothers/Paramount/CNN acquisition; the Ellison connection.
• 06:44-07:19 – [Audio Clip] Trump publicly discusses his “hands off” approach on mergers.
• 08:03 – Discussion of Tim Lewecki’s pardon and its message to Slater.
• 10:46 – Slater’s record: action against Apple, Google, and media mergers in the face of political pressure.
• 12:12 – Lobbyist contamination in Antitrust and why it matters.
• 13:06 – Elizabeth Warren’s reaction and Popok’s summation of DOJ corruption.
• 13:58 – Chronic pattern of unqualified appointments, resignations, and a DOJ “cancer.”

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Conclusion

Michael Popok’s analysis in this episode forcefully connects Abigail Slater’s firing to Trump’s broader effort to undermine antitrust protections, manipulate major media mergers for personal benefit, and fill the Department of Justice with loyalists or industry cronies. The episode serves as a warning about the consequences for consumers and democracy when the government’s critical regulatory powers are captured by those in power—summed up in Popok's own words: “This is about the American consumer now not having anyone to push back against Donald Trump’s efforts to raise prices... It couldn’t be any clearer.” (02:40, 07:24)

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For more in-depth legal news and analyses, visit the Legal AF YouTube channel and Substack.

Transcript

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[Michael Popak]

Heads continue to roll at the Department of Justice following Pam Bondi's immolation and embarrassing and unhinged performance in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Except it's not Pam Bondi's head. They just fired Abigail Slater, a little known but super powerful head of the Department of Justice's Antitrust division, because she's gotten sideways with Donald Trump. Particularly about the acquisition of CNN's parent company, where Donald Trump has a vested interest in and has a conflict of interest in she's taken on Abigail Slater, has taken on the tech giants. Many of them are in Donald Trump's back pocket or vice versa. And she finally outworn, wore out her welcome 11 months into her tenure. This is not about Abigail Slater. This is about the American consumer now not having anyone to push back against Donald Trump's efforts to raise prices to make things uncompetitive, to benefit his tech bro buddies. And who's going to pay the price? Literally, you and me and the American consumer. I'm Michael Popak. You're on Midas touch and legal AF. Let's talk about this. The last 24 hours, Donald Trump has fired a bunch of people. He fired, after just 24 hours, a U.S. attorney that he had appointed to be the U.S. attorney in the Northern District of New York. The guy made it 24 hours. That brings us to Abigail Slater. This is all in the wake. It's like Donald Trump needs to fire somebody after watching Pam Bondi's performance, but he doesn't know who. So now he's going to go to the next person on the list, which is Abigail Slater. And Abigail Slater had been with the Department of Justice for a long time. And antitrust. Antitrust is the antitrust regulation is the going after companies who, through acquisition of their competitors, make markets less competitive to the consumer, meaning your prices are higher. So when a major cell phone company acquires a competitor and gets a large market share, that means they have the ability through market muscle to raise prices and there's no competitor to balance it off. Right. If you acquire all of your competitors, you can just raise prices as high as you can. And who's going to stop that? The antitrust division of the Department of Justice. Through their investigations, many things like combinations of companies have to ultimately be approved and be cleared through this Department of Justice Ant Trust division. But we've been reporting for over a year that Donald Trump has corrupted it, allowing insiders, allowing business lobbyists to get inside of the sacrosanct Department of Justice antitrust division to manipulate policy. Now, that hasn't stopped Abigail Slater because she's a career antitrust lawyer and a public servant. So she has continued to go after the Warner Brothers Netflix combination. She's basically had Paramount, which is owned by the Ellison family, close friends of Donald Trump, effectively sidelined. Paramount wants to buy Warner Brothers, including cnn. But Netflix stepped in the middle. And it all comes down to the antitrust division. Now, Donald Trump has his big fat thumb on the scale because he wants the Ellison family, who also own Oracle to acquire Warner Brothers and get their hands on cnn, giving Donald Trump yet another non independent media company under his control to add to CBS and 60 Minutes and ABC. And then he would add one of the crown jewels, cnn, through his buddy. His buddy acquiring it. Now, Donald Trump just last week had a tell. He had a tick that sort of told us that Abigail Slater's time on this planet was not long, at least as the head of the antitrust division. Actually, two tells. One, when he was interviewed about the acquisition, he made a very interesting comment that he would no longer be involved. He said he was going to be involved with who gets the prize of CNN and who gets the prize of Warner Brothers assets. And then suddenly last week, he said, no, no, I'm not gonna be involved. My Department of Justice is gonna handle that. Which we know he's captured and completely controls. But here's the clip.

[Interviewer]

You are close with the Ellisons, who are trying to stop a merger between Warner Brothers, Discovery and Netflix. This deal could change the makeup of the media as we know it. Are you personally to get involved in that deal?

[Donald Trump]

I haven't been involved, I must say. I guess I'm considered to be a very strong president. I've been called by both sides. It's the two sides, but I've decided I shouldn't be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Michael Popak]

In what way?

[Interviewer]

Just looking at it, see if it's.

[Donald Trump]

Going to make a decision. I mean, there's a theory that one of the companies is too big and it shouldn't be allowed to do it. And the other company is saying something else about, you know, they're not going.

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Other and there'll be a winner.

[Michael Popak]

So, yes, he, his Department of Justice is control, but he doesn't want Abigail Slater to be controlled. So she was canned as a. To get her out of the way for Donald Trump to influence and try to award the prize of CNN and Warner Brothers assets to the Ellison family. I mean, it couldn't be any clearer than that. Let's talk about something no one wants to talk about. What happens when you die. Because unfortunately, it's going to happen to you, to me. But you can be prepared with trust and will. Online estate planning. I'll be honest. Estate planning is one of those things that really is easy to put off. A lot of us are parents, homeowners, spouses, or we're caring for aging parents and children. And we know it's important but it just sits on the to do list. Look, I've definitely been guilty of that in the past. And then you realize something as important as naming a guardian for your kids shouldn't be left to chance. That's why I like trust and Will. 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It's when you have what's supposed to be competitive competition between competing bids, all right, in order to do a contract, right, a request for proposal goes out, an rfp, bids come in and the lowest bidder law, lowest cost provider, is supposed to win as long as they meet all the criteria of the bid. He rigged it to make sure that he would get it. And he was sent and he was convicted by Donald Trump's own Department of justice in the first term, led by Abigail Slater. And Donald Trump pardoned him. Donald Trump just pardoned him for this bid rigging scandal. So if Abigail Slater didn't know her time was up, then she certainly knows it now. And then you get this lukewarm, you know, thank you for your service, social media post from Pam Bondi. But let's just call this out for what it is she has gone after. I'm talking about Abigail Slater. Now, Apple, run by Tim Cook, best buddies with Donald Trump, right? And Donald Trump doesn't like that. And Tim Cook doesn't like that. She's gone after Google and successfully went after them related to ads that you see on Google and YouTube. And we know that Google and YouTube are big supporters of Donald Trump as well. So when you look at the industries that she's taken on, you know, media Technology buddies of Donald Trump, many of them donated to his inauguration or his ballroom or both, or were up at the podium during his inauguration where instead of friends and family, it was just tech bros in the back, Tim Cook and, and the head of Meta, Facebook and, you know, Zuckerberg, all that course, Abigail Slater standing tall in defense of proper antitrust regulation was going to be on the way out. When Donald Trump said out loud in that video, I am going to keep out of it. I'm going to have the Department of Justice did it, do it. What he really meant to say is, I got to get rid of Abigail Slater because she's in the way of what I want to accomplish with making our country not competitive, making sure that my buddies can acquire the companies that they want to acquire and not have any pushback for the antitrust division. Earlier in the year, we reported on lobbyists. This has never happened in the history of the Antitrust division. You know, you're not supposed to have cross contamination or contamination. You're not supposed to allow lobbying to come into the antitrust division. Lawyers, lawyers representing discovery or Warner Brothers or Google, Apple, any of the companies in pharmaceutical arena, any of the companies that are going to interface with, with the antitrust division, they send their lawyers. They don't send their lobbyists. But to Donald Trump, everything is transactional, right? Everything is commercial. And so he allowed, and Slater put an end to it, lobbyists to get inside of the Antitrust division to try to lobby for new regulations that would regulate them as an industry. That's wrong. That's corrupt. Elizabeth Warren, Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren fighting every day for us, said that the dismissal or firing of Abigail Slater is corruption again in our midst. And I'll be on record once again, this Department of Justice is the most corrupt Department of Justice completely captured by the presidency, completely captured by a criminal president. And this is the result, no doubt why we see US Attorneys get fired after. Look at what we've just looked at. In the last year, you've got six different US Attorneys who have been bounced by courts and had to resign in disgrace because they were not qualified. They couldn't get confirmed at the Senate and they were illegally appointed by Pam Bondi gone, including Lindsey Halligan, including Alina Haba, those closest to Donald Trump. You know, then you've got, even the ones that they're trying to encourage to take the job are lasting shorter than, you know, you know, like the shelf life for U.S. attorneys, apparently 24 hours. We just had one replaced. After 24 hours, the leading attorney prosecutor for one of the 93 federal districts made it 24 hours. And now you've got Abigail Slater, which is indicative of a broader disease and corruption and cancer within the Department of Justice. Name Donald Trump and Pam Bundy. So I'm going to continue to follow it all right here for you. I'm midas touched. Take a moment, slide over to Legal AF YouTube channel. Hit the free subscribe button.

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