Omeed Assefi, who took over as the acting chief at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division for a second time, and in an address to staff on Tuesday sought to dispel any doubts about his commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws, telling attorneys that "half measures and mere monetary penalties" in lieu of seeking justice do not enthuse him.
Omeed Assefi, beginning his second stint as the acting chief of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, sought to dispel on Tuesday any doubts about his commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws, telling attorneys that "half measures and mere monetary penalties" are insufficient.The top DOJ antitrust enforcer — who until last week was the deputy assistant attorney general for criminal enforcement — also exhorted staff handling civil cases to "keep up" with the pace set by colleagues handling criminal matters.
"For those who question whether we will continue to enforce the law, just ask your colleagues in the criminal program whether I care about enforcement," Assefi told staff, according to the text prepared for a staff videoconference and seen by MLex. "Ask them how I feel about settling cases in lieu of trial. Ask them how I feel about accepting half measures and mere monetary penalties in lieu of seeking justice."
Assefi, who took over as acting assistant attorney general last week, had prosecuted violent crimes in US District Court and the DC Superior Court before coming to the DOJ. He took on his current role after Gail Slater was ousted Thursday, less than one year into the job (see here). He had also served as AAG for roughly two months in early 2025 before Slater was sworn in.
Assefi cited the pace of growth in the DOJ's criminal program, where the number of days of incarceration for convicted antitrust defendants grew by 1,200 percent in fiscal 2025 compared to the prior fiscal year.
The criminal program achieved the first guilty verdict and prison sentence in a labor market case, indicted a major private equity CEO, "had a defendant eat a seven count indictment on the eve of trial because we wouldn’t let him pay a fine to avoid prison time," and just secured a 34-count guilty verdict for a defendant submitting fraudulent invoices to the federal government, he said. In the latter case, Assefi was referring to a victory against a Florida business owner who was recently found guilty of wire fraud, money laundering, and forgery by a federal jury in Miami (see here).
"With a budget of about 2 paralegals and half a roll of scotch tape, your colleagues in the criminal program are in the grand jury every week, indicting companies, issuing target letters to high-profile CEOs, obtaining court approval for wiretaps, executing search warrants, and winning crime-fraud motions across the country," Assefi said.
The agenda for the criminal program has been and will continue to be maximum incarceration and a focus on whistleblowers, he told staff.
"Respectfully, the question is not whether we will continue to enforce the law. The question is whether the entire Division can keep up with the pace we have set in the criminal program," Assefi said.
— Civil cases must 'keep up' —
Assefi acknowledged that the staff in the Antitrust Division's civil program processed a record number of merger filings while completing two remedies trials against Google in 2025.
"Having said that, the civil program has not brought a single enforcement action for the last year. The last civil enforcement case is one I brought and even then, I had to overrule you to bring it," he said, referring to the staff.
Assefi was citing the DOJ's challenge to the $14 billion merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. The case was set to go to trial in July but was settled after the DOJ conditionally cleared the merger and required HPE to make divestitures.
"To quote the movie Whiplash: 'not quite my tempo.' I have no plans to change my approach. So the question for you is how you plan to keep up," Assefi told staff. " Because for as long as I sit in this seat, we are going to empty the clip."
The DOJ's top antitrust cop said Slater was "very considerate and patient" with the staff. "I will also be considerate. But I am not patient."
— 'No excuses' —
Under Slater's leadership, the Antitrust Division gained the ability to retain premerger notification filing fees above the budget allocation of $245 million. Slater had lobbied for the increase in an appropriations bill that was recently signed into law by US President Donald Trump (see here).
Assefi acknowledged his former boss' achievement, and said it will allow more hiring.
The Antitrust Division was affected by a DOJ-wide hiring freeze as well as two rounds of deferred resignation programs and usual attrition rates in the civil and criminal enforcement programs.
Staffing in the Antitrust Division's Washington DC criminal section has been reduced by nearly half in the past year, and is now down to roughly 25 attorneys, it is understood. Overall staffing in the Antitrust Division is down to slightly north of 600 people from around 800 a year ago, it is understood (see here).
"We will be hiring and spending resources for case teams, economists, paralegals, tech support, and yes, printers for LSB," Assefi said, referring to the Liberty Square Building where most career staffers work. "In fact, we already have a paralegal posting that is live and anticipate attorney postings to be live on February 23rd."
He said that "in short, you will be given everything you need to move the agenda forward. There are no excuses. And if that ever appears in doubt, I will be in that office from 7am to past 7pm. That door will always be open for you."
— 'Ignore the noise' —
Slater became last week's second high-ranking casualty in the Antitrust Division. Mark Hamer, a Slater deputy in charge of civil litigation, resigned three days prior. Hamer quit less than a year in the job (see here).
"This was a hard week. There’s no other way to put it," Assefi said.
"Gail and Mark were exceptional in their stewardship of this Division and it will take time to adjust to their absence. To be blunt, I am only here because of Gail. She gave me the best job of my life, which is the Crim DAAG job. She not only gave me that job, but she also entrusted me with leading the Division for the three months before her confirmation. Gail saw something in me at the time that I didn’t even see in myself," he said. "This will be the second time I’ve served as Acting AAG. But I’ve never asked to do that job. I loved being the Crim DAAG."
Assefi asked staff to ignore naysayers who claim that the era of enforcement is over. Those people, he said, are the same ones who said the DOJ couldn’t win a labor market case. "Until we did."
"Then they said leniency was dead and mocked our whistleblower program. Those [same] people are now breathlessly writing client alerts about the $1 million we paid a whistleblower in the first 6 months of the program. Whether these people praise us or critique us, I could not care less. Pundits are always undefeated and we are simply too busy in this Division to take notice," Assefi said.
The DOJ and the US Postal Service recently announced a $1 million reward to a whistleblower who provided information that led to resolving criminal antitrust and fraud charges through a deferred prosecution agreement. The reward is the Antitrust Division’s first whistleblower reward (see here).
Slater supported the DOJ's criminal antitrust program "in a way that no other prior AAG had," Assefi said. She fought for resources, helped save the Division's field offices in San Francisco and Chicago, and allowed the agency to pursue an agenda that consistently reminded the public that antitrust crimes are not technical violations but brazen offenses deserving of incarceration, he said.
"My ask of you is to ignore the noise and like Gail said, 'Keep the main thing the main thing,' " he said. The phrase is beautiful because of its profound simplicity, he said.
Despite distractions and concerns, "that motto tells us to focus on what is right before you at this very moment. Meaning: What can you do the second this call ends that furthers the mission?" Assefi said.
"To be clear, Gail’s agenda is my agenda," he said. "We will be unrelenting in our focus on affordability and kitchen-table issues that affect the lives of everyday Americans."
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