A Trump Justice Department adviser took a job worth more than $50 million from the family of a man under federal bribery scrutiny. Weeks later, that man got a full presidential pardon.
The adviser is Alina Habba. She is Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and the former Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. At the time of the deal, she was also serving as a Senior Advisor to the Attorney General for U.S. Attorneys.
The man who got the pardon is Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker.
How the Deal Came Together
According to the New York Times reporting cited by La Voce di New York, Herrera Velutini’s daughter, Isabela Herrera, set up a Florida company called Concord Partners in October 2025.
She used that company to hire Habba as general counsel. The contract guaranteed Habba roughly $10 million a year for four years, plus bonuses. Total value: more than $50 million.
Habba formally started the Concord Partners job on January 1, 2026. At that exact moment, she was still a special government employee advising Attorney General Pam Bondi on matters involving U.S. Attorneys, according to GV Wire.
The Case Against Herrera Velutini
Herrera Velutini wasn’t a stranger to the Justice Department. He had faced a felony bribery charge accusing him of offering to bankroll then-Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez’s campaign. The alleged motive: getting her to replace a bank regulator who was scrutinizing his institution.
In August 2025, that felony was downgraded. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor campaign finance violation, as reported by El Nuevo Dia.
Then, within weeks of Habba starting her Concord Partners job, Trump granted Herrera Velutini a full pardon. Co-defendants former Governor Wanda Vazquez and former FBI agent Mark Rossini were pardoned too, according to the Daily Beast.
Money Flowed to Trump’s PAC Too
The Concord Partners contract wasn’t the only money moving from the Herrera family toward Trump’s political operation. Isabela Herrera donated $2.5 million to the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC on December 31, 2024.
She gave another $1 million in late July 2025. That second donation came after the Justice Department had already dropped the most serious felony charge against her father, according to Mediaite.
The Denials
Both Habba and the White House have publicly denied any link between the legal contract and the pardon decision. Habba says the job was disclosed to and vetted by the Justice Department.
Editorial Take: Why the Timeline Matters
This is our interpretation, not a reported fact: timelines like this one are exactly what conflict-of-interest rules exist to prevent.
A sitting DOJ adviser with oversight responsibility over U.S. Attorneys took a nine-figure-adjacent compensation deal from the family of a man with an active federal case. The pardon followed almost immediately after her compensation started.
Disclosure and vetting, if they happened, don’t answer the core question the public is left with: did impartial law enforcement judgment stay separate from a quarter-billion-dollar family’s money? That’s a judgment call, not a settled fact — and it’s one readers can weigh for themselves.
What’s documented: the job, the dollar figures, the charge, the plea, and the pardon dates. What’s denied: any causal link between them. Both things are true at once, and the record doesn’t yet resolve the gap between them.
Want to weigh in? Head to themoraldecayindex.com and tell us your verdict on this one.