If you thought Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Juniper acquisition was done and dusted, hold your horses. The deal is back in the spotlight after a U.S. judge greenlit advisers who worked on the deal's settlement to testify under oath amid accusations of impropriety.

Northern California District Judge Casey Pitts agreed to allow a group of state attorneys general to interview lawyers William Levi and Mike Davis and consultant Arthur Schwartz as part of an inquiry into the Department of Justice (DOJ)'s approval of the $14 billion deal.

Following Judge Pitts' decision not to block deposition testimony, the trio will now face state officials probing the deal’s approval, including questions about their work for HPE and communications with the government or other parties.

“I think that, at the very least, deposition testimony would be necessary to get a fuller picture of any non-written interaction. So, I'm not going to categorically prohibit deposition testimony," MLex quoted the judge as saying.

Levi, a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin, was retained by HPE to serve as an advisor on the acquisition efforts. He previously served in several senior DOJ roles, as well as chief of staff to Attorney General Bill Barr during President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

HPE also enlisted Davis, a lawyer and 2020 election denier, who was once tipped as a potential attorney general and was previously described by Steve Bannon as a “full fucking MAGA warrior.”

Schwartz, meanwhile, is a conservative consultant with close ties to Bannon and Donald Trump Jr., who hit headlines last year for maligning Republican Senator and Trump critic Thom Tillis.

The trio were referred to in a scathing speech by Roger Alford, the recently deposed principal deputy assistant attorney general at the DOJ Antitrust Division, who accused them and other officials of being “corrupt lobbyists with no relevant expertise.”

Alford, who served as deputy to Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, last summer was one of two DOJ officials fired for alleged insubordination concerning the HPE deal. Slater, the head of the antitrust division, is a former advisor to U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

Speaking at a technology policy event last August in Aspen, Colorado, Alford named Davis and Schwartz for having “made a Faustian bargain of trading on relationships with powerful people to reportedly earn million-dollar success fees by helping corporations undermine Trump’s antitrust agenda, hurt working class Americans, break the rules, and then try to cover it up.”

Alford also called out Levi, questioning how "their shenanigans" were viewed by his lawyer and fellow Supreme Court clerk peers.

“My position while I served in government was simple: lobbyists and lawyers are subordinate to the law. Yet by stating this truth, I was dismissed for insubordination,” Alford said in his speech. “All it took to be fired were lobbyists exerting influence on my superiors to retaliate against me for protecting the rule of law against the rule of lobbyists.”

What exactly is the dispute about?

At its core, this is a dispute about determining if the DOJ's approval of HPE's Juniper acquisition was influenced by political considerations as opposed to a genuine assessment of anticompetitive impacts.

HPE’s DOJ approval last June saw it:

• Agree to license limited access to Juniper’s AI Ops for Mist source code.
• Divest its Instant On wireless LAN (WLAN) campus and branch network switching business – including all assets, IP, and research and development staff to a DOJ-approved buyer.

But most crucially of all, the approval of that deal meant HPE avoided what was a pending court date, which was to be used to argue out the terms. The DOJ had sued HPE in January 2025 in an effort to block the deal, though the at-issue settlement came mere days before it was due to be examined in court.

Under the Tunney Act of 1974, all DOJ settlements require a judicial review as well as a notice and comment period before a consent decree can be approved.

A coalition of states are now looking into the deal, arguing that HPE procured lobbyists with close ties to the Trump administration in order to force the deal through.

The supposed shenanigans come with a sprinkle of irony when Slater said during her confirmation hearings that she would act as “an independent thinker and not pushed into her position by President Trump.”

HPE didn’t seem too dismayed by the terms of the approval either, with both CEO Antonio Neri and ex-Juniper CEO turned GM of HPE Networking Rami Rahim downplaying the concessions.

Since the acquisition’s closing, the amalgamated vendor has sought to infuse Juniper offerings through its product lines, chiefly its retail-focused networking gear, liquid-cooled Ethernet switches, and multiservice edge routers.

Examination into the acquisition’s DOJ approval, however, continues.

In a statement provided to SDxCentral, a HPE spokesperson said: “We remain confident that an objective examination of the facts of this case will conclude that the settlement was reached appropriately, is in the public interest, and is important to U.S. national security.

"This legal process does not impact the delivery of solutions to our customers and our partners. HPE has already closed the Juniper transaction and made significant progress in integrating the company.”

This article was updated to include a statement from HPE.