Trump Pardons Julio Herrera Velutini After Donations and Habba Deal

President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini in January 2026, following a Florida company’s promise of a multi-million-dollar contract to Trump’s former attorney Alina Habba and millions in political donations from the banker’s 27-year-old daughter.

Julio Herrera Velutini wanted a clean record. A billionaire banker from a prominent Venezuelan family, he faced federal felony bribery charges in the United States involving former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced. Prosecutors accused the banker of financing Vázquez’s campaign in exchange for removing a banking regulator who was investigating one of his institutions.

The case shifted in August 2025 when Herrera Velutini reached a plea agreement that reduced the charges to a misdemeanor campaign finance offense. Yet the reduced charge remained a stain on his record, prompting his defense team to seek executive clemency.

Christopher Kise, Political Donations, and the Pursuit of Clemency

To pursue the pardon, Herrera deployed his attorney Christopher M. Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who had served on Trump’s personal legal team. At the same time, the banker’s 27-year-old daughter, Isabela Herrera, poured millions into political committees supporting the president.

Isabela Herrera contributed $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, across installments in December 2024 and July 2025. Those large contributions prompted the Campaign Legal Center to ask federal election regulators to investigate whether she had acted as a donor on her father’s behalf to conceal the source of the money.

Months before her father received clemency, Isabela Herrera also pledged a $2.5 million donation to the White House ballroom project in September 2025, paying an initial $835,000 installment on October 14.

Alina Habba Joins Concord Partners for $50 Million

Even with political donations, the pardon had not materialized by the fall of 2025. That changed after the Herrera family hired Alina Habba, a former personal attorney to Trump who was then serving as a senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The family offered Habba a contract to become general counsel at Concord Partners, a company established in late October 2025 in Florida.

They offered her $10 million a year for four years along with a range of bonuses. In total, including bonuses, she was guaranteed more than $50 million over four years, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

Tyler Pager, Times reporter via Alternet

At the time the deal was finalized, Habba maintained an office at the Justice Department, oversaw U.S. attorneys, and had a protective detail from the U.S. Marshals. People familiar with her contract expressed surprise at the scale of the compensation for joining a newly registered firm that had no public profile and whose business remained unclear even to associates within the Herrera family empire.

White House Pardons and the Aftermath

Habba formally began her work for Concord Partners on January 1. Weeks later, on January 15, 2026, Trump granted Herrera Velutini an initial pardon, followed by an amended clemency order on January 20. Trump also pardoned former Governor Vázquez and a political consultant who had been charged alongside the banker.

White House officials maintained that the prosecutions were politically motivated and that financial contributions had no bearing on the president’s decisions. Habba defended her outside employment in a statement to reporters.

Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the D.O.J. — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false.

Alina Habba, via Mediaite

Following the presidential clemency, the Federal Election Commission declined to comment on the campaign finance complaint, and neither the banker nor his daughter responded to media requests for comment regarding the arrangement.

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