Many industry players raised their eyebrows when they saw how quickly the Compass-Anywhere merger was approved. Now lawmakers are also asking the Justice Department to revisit the deal a letter sent to the department from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The letter – addressed to US Attorney General Pamela Bondi and signed by 18 members of Congress – requests more information about the DOJ’s review of the merger, which it said was approved “under extremely questionable circumstances.”
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The letter refers to a report by The Wall Street Journal Antitrust chief Gail Slater said he had wanted to launch a comprehensive review of the deal to determine whether it was anticompetitive. But the Magazine Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reportedly overruled Slater when Compass attorneys appealed to his office, which subsequently approved the transaction.
Slater resigned from the DOJ last week, but the letter from lawmakers said she was “forced out,” according to several reports.
“This decision raises questions about the corruption under your watch and its impact on housing affordability for American families,” the letter said. “Allowing this merger will make it easier for these companies to exert greater control over the real estate market, limit consumer access and choice, and ultimately worsen the housing crisis that has put homeownership out of reach for millions of Americans.”
Compass did not immediately respond to Inman’s request for comment on the letter. News of the letter was first reported by HousingWire.
Consolidation within the industry is hampering consumers’ ability to negotiate agent commissions, the letter said, and access to greater inventory options is also being hampered by the increasing use of private listing networks, a practice “widely adopted by Compass,” two factors that have the potential to drive up housing costs for Americans.
Typically, mergers trigger a 30-day waiting period with the DOJ’s antitrust division, the letter explains, which may be extended to allow for further review. In this case, however, Blanche approved the transaction without the review after Trump-connected Compass attorney Mike Davis presented the company’s case to Blanche’s office, per The WSJs report.
“The fact pattern reported in the Compass-Anywhere deal is deeply troubling and indicates that it may be yet another example of well-connected industries and lobbyists gaining inside access to high-ranking Trump Administration DOJ officials, and using this access to distort the antitrust process to gain approval of anticompetitive mergers that will reduce competition and harm the public,” the lawmakers wrote.
Lawmakers also noted that the Compass-Anywhere transaction is not the first about which they have raised concerns with the DOJ, citing the merger between Hewlett Packard and Juniper, which closed in July 2025.
The letter concluded with seventeen questions for Bondi “to help us understand the process that led Trump’s Justice Department to approve the merger of two of the largest brokerages in the country,” and asked for written responses by March 5, 2026.
Sen. Warren and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also wrote a letter to the DOJ and FTC in December, asking them to “thoroughly investigate” the Compass-Anywhere deal due to antitrust and price manipulation concerns “that have been at the center of the mounting litigation.”
View the full letter below:
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