Roger Alford is trying to reinvent himself as some kind of MAGA martyr after being fired from the DOJ — but his own record tells a much different story.
Alford’s narrative is that he was bravely standing up to “corruption” inside the Trump administration when he opposed the Hewlett Packard Enterprise–Juniper merger. In reality, senior national security officials concluded that allowing the merger would strengthen U.S. domestic capabilities against Huawei and China. Alford went rogue, undermined his superiors, and got shown the door. He now brags about hanging his termination letter on his office wall like some kind of badge of honor.
But scratch beneath the surface, and it’s clear why Alford didn’t trust the America First approach: he’s been bashing it for years.
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Back in 2016, speaking at Renmin University in Beijing (an institution with Chinese Communist Party ties), Alford trashed Trump’s plan to get tough on China, calling it “ludicrous and uninformed.” He warned it would hurt “Sino-American relations” — parroting Beijing’s own talking points.
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He lumped Trump in with Bernie Sanders as someone who “distrusts free trade,” openly fretting that American policy might actually shift away from the globalist status quo.
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In his writings, he praised China’s “market-based economy” and its rise to economic prominence, language that Beijing propagandists themselves could have written.
And yet now, after being fired, Alford insists he’s a “genuine MAGA reformer.” Sorry, but that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Even DOJ officials compared him to James Comey — a bureaucrat more interested in self-promotion than in serving the country. And let’s not ignore where he was peddling his latest complaints: the Tech Policy Institute Aspen Forum, sponsored by Google and Facebook, two of the very companies with a vested interest in keeping America soft on China.
WH Press Sec was asked about Roger Alford and DOJ corruption today. “I have no idea who that individual is, I don’t know why he made those comments, I don’t know what basis he’s making those comments on. My instinct tells me it’s not true but we will definitely look into them.” pic.twitter.com/qNViMjZFPT
— David Dayen (@ddayen) August 19, 2025
To be fair, Alford points to some of his work where he did oppose Chinese antitrust violations — including Animal Science Products v. Hebei at the Supreme Court, where the U.S. challenged Beijing’s abuse of foreign law in antitrust disputes. He also highlights his support for export controls on Chinese AI development. Those are legitimate contributions.
But his larger track record reveals a long pattern of skepticism toward America First policies and a disturbing willingness to echo Beijing’s preferred narrative. You don’t get to spend a decade warning that getting tough on China would be “tremendously harmful,” then reinvent yourself overnight as a MAGA truth-teller after being fired for insubordination.
