The Law That Could Blow Open Trump Antitrust Corruption

Lobbyist meddling to get a critical merger case approved could face sunlight thanks to a 1974 law called the Tunney Act, which allows a judge to investigate the outcome.

by David Dayen July 29, 2025

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division has been torched by corruption, with lobbyists pressuring allies in the Trump administration to overrule the division on the first big merger challenge of Trump’s second term, and then firing the top deputies of the division’s leader. But this (apparent) effort to hijack antitrust powers on behalf of large corporations has a vulnerability: a 51-year-old law that allows a judge to investigate and expose the corruption for all to see.

Top Democrats and outside anti-monopoly reformers are preparing to call on U.S. District Court Judge Casey Pitts to engage in a deep review of the merger settlement between Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks. The mechanism is the Tunney Act, a 1974 law passed in response to Nixon-era corruption in antitrust cases.

Merger settlements by courts are usually a pro forma rubber stamp. But the Tunney Act allows a judge to hold evidentiary hearings, call witnesses, and seek documents to assess the Justice Department’s conduct and whether the settlement is in the public interest. Congress passed the Tunney Act to prevent merger reviews from being swamped by oceans of lobbyist cash.


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While Tunney Act reviews aren’t used often—the last major one looked at the CVS-Aetna merger during Trump’s first term in 2019—Judge Pitts, a Biden appointee, is seen as the best possible draw for this option.
https://prospect.org/power/2025-07-29-law-could-blow-open-trump-antitrust-corruption/