She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform. The sudden firing of two high-ranking antitrust officials this week is signaling upheaval at an agency responsible for arguing some of the biggest tech monopoly cases in decades. (Alford later posted a copy of his letter, which he said he framed and hung in his University of Notre Dame office.) Slater, who worked for Vice President JD Vance in the Senate, is widely seen as a respected and serious figure in antitrust circles. “This creates the image that everything that happens in the US is subject to a political fix,” Kovacic says.