DOJ Overruled Prosecutors in Deal for Trump-Linked Governor (1)

Justice Department leadership ordered prosecutors about to start a major bribery trial to reach a more lenient deal with Puerto Rico’s former governor, who had endorsed President Donald Trump, and a billionaire represented by Trump’s personal lawyer, said two people familiar with the matter.

Defense attorneys—including Christopher Kise, who had represented Trump against charges of mishandling classified documents—argued that the long-running corruption case against former Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced was an example of a weaponized prosecution.

That argument founded a receptive audience in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Kise’s co-counsel in the classified documents case, which intervened to demand line prosecutors and Puerto Rico’s US attorney settle before an August trial, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

The mandate from a department political appointee, delivered during a day-long meeting May 29 at DOJ headquarters, overruled prosecutors who had pursued much stricter felony bribery and wire fraud charges carrying up to 20 years in prison, according to court filings and interviews.

Instead, the parties agreed to allow Vázquez Garced, her consultant and ex-FBI agent Mark Rossini, and Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini to all plead to a single misdemeanor in which they may avoid prison time, court documents show.

Media representatives for DOJ and the US attorney’s office in Puerto Rico didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The new plea agreements, which await a judge’s approval in San Juan, are the latest instance of the Trump administration reducing or dismissing public corruption charges against individuals with White House connections as white-collar defendants and Trump supporters are looking for relief.

The case involved the same public integrity office the Trump administration has weakened after multiple attorneys resigned in February over an order to dismiss charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

An assistant US attorney in Puerto Rico who was preparing to prosecute Vázquez Garced and her co-defendants at trial withdrew from the case and left the Justice Department on June 27, according to a court filing and two people aware of the decision. That former prosecutor declined to comment.

The plea agreement came a few days after the head of the department’s criminal division, in a speech about overseas bribery enforcement, warned white-collar lawyers that “mischaracterizing prosecutorial conduct” would be “counter-productive to your appeals.”

Defense presentations to end corporate investigations are still being directed to criminal division leaders in Trump’s DOJ. But Vázquez Garced, Rossini, and Herrera’s lawyers found some measure of success in elevating their dispute directly to the DAG’s office. That’s despite the fact that two people briefed on the matter said leadership wasn’t convinced prosecutors were motivated by politics.

A source close to the legal defense team said the resolution resulted from the standard review process DOJ undergoes in every case to evaluate the evidence.

Vázquez Garced’s attorney declined to comment through his secretary, citing a judicial gag order. Rossini’s attorney didn’t reply.

Kise, who made his initial appearance on the docket in August 2024, declined to comment.

Firing Regulator

In the August 2022 indictment, prosecutors alleged Herrera made $300,000 in campaign contributions to Vázquez Garced in exchange for an agreement to fire the territory’s commissioner of financial institutions and replace him with someone Herrera selected. The commissioner’s office was at the time investigating around $10 billion in transactions processed by Bancredito Bank Holding Corp., which Herrera founded.

DOJ’s public integrity section had investigated the case alongside prosecutors in Puerto Rico. The US island territory’s chief prosecutor, Stephen Muldrow, who Trump nominated in 2019, had previously championed the Vázquez Garced case’s merits, two of the sources said.

Muldrow defended it when defense lawyers argued that prosecutors were selectively targeting Vázquez Garced, who was also Puerto Rico’s former justice secretary, because during her 17-month stint as governor, she endorsed Trump in 2020, three people familiar said.

Before the meeting, a Trump appointee in the DAG’s office emailed the Vázquez Garced prosecutors to order they provide a written explanation as to why this case didn’t reflect government weaponization, two people said.

Countering those claims, prosecutors noted the investigation began during Trump’s first term. In addition, the government had secured guilty pleas from two cooperators, including the CEO of Herrera’s bank, and had prevailed when the judge denied defense motions to dismiss.

Still, the DAG’s office order to end the May 29 meeting with a resolution led to the public integrity line attorney and Puerto Rico’s Muldro backing down with a misdemeanor deal.

Several former DOJ officials said the outcome seemed alarming, but less so when compared with other Trump administration interventions in criminal matters. The trio would at least have a permanent guilty plea on their records.

Ellen Podgor, a white-collar crime professor at Stetson Law, said that in light of this DOJ leadership team breaking from tradition to align itself closely with the White House, it’s natural to be skeptical of moves like this.

“But a plea in this particular case,” Podgor said, “is less suspect” given the US Supreme Court’s string of recent decisions making it harder to prosecute public corruption.

While it’s not known if concerns of getting overturned on appeal influenced DOJ officials to require prosecutors settle with Vázquez Garced, the department’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, previously indicated that the Trump administration would be retreating from public corruption legal theories that the high court has repeatedly rejected.

Mizelle, in a Feb. 19 social media post, said the Adams dismissal was justified in part because “DOJ’s track record of public corruption cases at the Supreme Court is abysmal.”

In his own social media posts, Herrera indicated he was also paying attention to the Adams case. On Feb. 10, amid news reports of DOJ telling Manhattan prosecutors to drop the Adams prosecution, Herrera paid homage to Trump in two Instagram posts.

In one, he quoted Trump as saying: “Sometimes by losing a battle, you find a way to win the war.”