Attorney General Pam Bondi forced Abigail Slater out of her position as head of the Justice Department's antitrust division on Thursday, ending a tenure marked by internal feuding, alleged dishonesty, and a pattern of invoking Vice President JD Vance's name as a bureaucratic shield.

The Daily Mail reported that Slater, who served as a senior adviser to Vance during the 2024 campaign, had been confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust with the backing of 78 senators.

That broad support did not insulate her from the consequences of what multiple figures describe as erratic behavior and open defiance of her boss.

On social media, Slater framed her departure gently:

"It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today."

The reality behind that carefully worded exit was considerably less gentle.

The merger that lit the fuse

The conflict between Slater and Bondi crystallized around a $14 billion merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. Slater moved to block the deal, arguing it would create a duopoly over cloud-computing systems.

Bondi saw it differently — and she wasn't alone. CIA Director John Ratcliffe informed Bondi that blocking the merger would pose a national security risk. Ratcliffe was reportedly outraged that he hadn't been consulted on the matter before Slater acted.

Then the story got worse. Slater had told Bondi that U.S. intelligence agencies had not raised concerns about her move to kill the merger. Ratcliffe's intervention made clear that wasn't true. Bondi came to believe Slater had lied to her to torpedo the deal.

That's not a policy disagreement. That's a trust collapse.

The merger dispute might have remained an internal policy fight had Slater not escalated. After Bondi refused to approve her request to attend a conference in Paris, Slater went anyway.

Bondi's response was swift — she cancelled Slater's government credit cards.

It's a small detail that tells a large story. When your boss says no and you go anyway, you're not fighting for principle. You're daring someone to fire you. Bondi eventually obliged.

The Vance problem

Slater's most damaging move may have been the one that cost her the last ally who mattered. As her dispute with Bondi intensified, Slater repeatedly invoked Vance's name to shield herself — essentially telling colleagues and officials that the Vice President had her back.

Vance had, in fact, initially supported Slater. He instructed aides that she should not be criticized for opposing the merger. But once Vance realized the relationship between Slater and Bondi had deteriorated beyond repair, his support evaporated. Learning that Slater had been name-dropping him as political armor only accelerated the withdrawal.

Bondi reportedly informed White House officials weeks before Thursday's ouster that the differences between herself and Slater were irreconcilable. By the time the axe fell, Slater had no one left to invoke.

Republican lawyer Mike Davis didn't mince words on X:

"Gail Slater was a long-time corporate lobbyist. With her own agenda. She made erratic decisions."

He went further:

"She went out of her way to knife too many Trump admin colleagues. She leaked, lied, disobeyed, and subverted. She got fired."

Davis's charges are blunt, and they remain allegations. But the pattern of behavior described across multiple accounts — the dishonesty about intelligence concerns, the defiance over Paris, the compulsive name-dropping — paints a consistent picture of someone who confused proximity to power with possession of it.

A lesson in how Washington actually works

Seventy-eight senators confirmed Slater. She had a powerful patron in the Vice President. She held one of the most consequential positions in federal antitrust enforcement. And she burned through all of it in months.

The temptation in Washington is always to treat a political relationship as a blank check — to assume that the right connections make you untouchable. Slater reportedly treated Vance's name like a magic word that would override the chain of command. It worked right up until it didn't.

Bondi, for her part, handled this the way an Attorney General should. She identified a subordinate who was acting outside her authority, misleading her about intelligence community concerns, defying direct instructions, and leveraging the Vice President's name without authorization.

She flagged the problem to the White House weeks in advance. And when the situation didn't resolve, she ended it. That's not a knifing. That's management.

The antitrust division now needs someone who understands that the job is to execute the administration's agenda within the chain of command — not to freelance with a $14 billion merger while hiding behind someone else's name. Bondi made sure the seat is open for that person.