Trump Pardons Venezuelan Banker, Ex-Puerto Rico Governor (3)

President Donald Trump pardoned Puerto Rico’s former governor and a Venezuelan banker accused of bribery, the president’s latest use of clemency power to nullify a long-running corruption case.

The full and unconditional pardons were part of a larger clemency package reflected in a Friday update to the Justice Department’s website.

Prosecutors had accused former Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced—who’d endorsed Trump in his 2020 re-election bid—of accepting $300,000 in campaign contributions from Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini in exchange for an agreement to fire a financial regulator who was investigating Herrera’s business dealings.

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

Justice Department leaders last year ordered prosecutors to strike a lenient deal with the defendants in the case, but they were still facing the prospect of up to a year in prison heading into a sentencing hearing scheduled for later this month. A DOJ political appointee overruled line prosecutors, insisting during a May 29 meeting that the parties broker a deal before the case was set to go to trial in August, Bloomberg Law reported in July.

Federal lobbying disclosures show that Kise had hired Brian Ballard, whose firm is heavily influential in Trump’s sphere, to advocate on behalf of Herrera’s bank. More recently, Herrera brought on Quinn Emanuel’s Alex Spiro, who defended then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams against corruption charges DOJ ultimately dropped last year.

Herrera’s daughter contributed $3.5 million to Trump political action committee MAGA Inc. since late 2024, the New York Times reported.

White House spokespeople didn’t provide a comment.

“Mr. Herrera Velutini is profoundly grateful to President Donald J. Trump for bestowing the grace of his benevolent pardon and looks forward to moving on with his life and dedicating his time to his family and career,” Kise said in a statement.

CBS reported earlier on the plan to pardon Vázquez Garced.

Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent-turned-consultant for the governor, was also granted a pardon. Rossini was accused of participating in the scheme in the 2022 indictment.

“Impunity protects and fosters corruption. The pardon granted to former Governor Wanda Vázquez undermines public integrity, shatters faith in justice, and offends those of us who believe in honest governance,” said Pablo José Hernández (D), Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner and the territory’s sole member of Congress.

Trump has made broad use of his clemency authority, pardoning high-profile defendants including former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced for drug trafficking, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, accused of accepting foreign bribes, and cryptocurrency executive Changpeng Zhao, convicted of money laundering.

The Vázquez Garced case had been pursued by the US attorney’s office in Puerto Rico and DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which under Trump’s second term has lost nearly all its prosecutors and litigating authority.

According to the original indictment, the $300,000 campaign contribution to Vázquez Garced was also conditioned on her replacing the fired financial regulator with someone Herrera selected. The regulator’s office was at the time investigating around $10 billion in transactions processed by Bancredito Bank Holding Corp., which Herrera founded.