{"id":295209,"date":"2026-02-13T01:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295209\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T01:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:42:07","slug":"dublin-woman-gail-slater-exits-trump-administration-less-than-a-year-after-appointment-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295209\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin woman Gail Slater exits Trump administration less than a year after appointment \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gail Slater<\/a>, the Dublin<\/a> woman whom US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a> appointed<\/a> to head the anti-trust division in the justice department, announced on Thursday that she had left the administration with immediate effect, less than a year after she was sworn into the role of assistant attorney general for that division. <\/p>\n

Her departure comes after months of internal acrimony between officials at the anti-trust division and administration members keen to see lighter enforcement of merger issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today,\u201d Slater wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was indeed the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role. Huge thanks to all who supported me this past year, most especially the men and women of [the justice department].\u201d<\/p>\n

An experienced lawyer who previously worked in the tech sector and as a media policy adviser, Slater also served as policy adviser for vice-president JD Vance<\/a> during his Senate term. She was a tech policy adviser at the US National Economic Council during the first Trump term. <\/p>\n

In choosing Slater for her most recent role, Trump had stated on social media that \u201cGail will help ensure that our competition laws are enforced, both vigorously and FAIRLY, with clear rules that facilitate, rather than stifle, the ingenuity of our greatest companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

She took the role with a reputation of having earned bipartisan respect, after spending 10 years at the US federal trade commission and serving as an adviser to Barack Obama<\/a> appointee Julie Brill.<\/p>\n

Last summer, it was reported that some figures within the administration were frustrated by Slater\u2019s scrupulousness and adherence to principle in a series of proposed mergers. Tensions grew over a proposed $14 billion (\u20ac11.8 billion) merger between Hewlett Packard and software company Juniper Networks, which Slater sought to block, to the reported frustration of attorney general Pam Bondi<\/a>. The merger went ahead after CIA director John Ratcliffe argued that blocking it would pose national security risks.<\/p>\n

Her departure comes at a time when Trump has publicly weighed in on two highly publicised bids for Hollywood studio Warner Bros, from Netflix and Paramount, the outcome of which hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018This screams cover-up\u2019: Pam Bondi faces fury over handling of Epstein filesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Although Slater had a powerful ally in JD Vance, the vice-president did not publicly advocate on her behalf. The Financial Times reported on Thursday that \u201cseveral of Slater\u2019s deputies have been dismissed or sidelined in recent months\u201d while Mark Hamer, the deputy chief at the antitrust division, departed days ago to return to the private sector.<\/p>\n

CNN and other US outlets have described Slater\u2019s departure as an \u201couster\u201d or stated that she was fired. Bondi issued a brief, neutral statement thanking Slater for her service. <\/p>\n

Slater is from Dalkey, Co Dublin, and was educated in University College Dublin and Oxford University. She has been living and working in the United States since 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gail Slater, the Dublin woman whom US president Donald Trump appointed to head the anti-trust division in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,107134,61,60,5461,51251,20966,115,90],"class_list":{"0":"post-295209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-gail-slater","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jd-vance","14":"tag-pam-bondi","15":"tag-trump-presidency","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}