The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini shortly after the banker’s family awarded a contract worth more than $50 million to Alina Habba, a lawyer long associated with Mr. Trump. Herrera Velutini had been charged with felony bribery; the pardon arrived within weeks of Habba’s deal, which the reporting says guaranteed roughly $10 million a year for four years. Habba had been one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and was serving as an adviser at the Justice Department and acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey while negotiating and finalizing the contract, the Times reports. The company that hired Habba was created in 2025 and had no employees or apparent operations when she finalized her deal days after the company was registered. The sequence prompted public calls for investigation and for legal accountability, with former Obama administration staffer Tommy Vietor characterizing the arrangement as a pay-to-play style transaction. News outlets and commentators are framing the pardon as another instance that could trigger congressional probes and potential subpoenas into pardon decision-making and outside payments tied to White House allies.
