Trump pardons Puerto Rico’s former governor Wanda Vázquez

President Trump pardoned former Puerto Rico governor, Wanda Vazquez Garcedwho pleaded guilty last year in a federal public corruption case.

His two co-defendants, Venezuelan-Italian billionaire banker and founder of the Britannia financial group Julio Martin Herrera Velutini and Mark Rossini, were also pardoned Thursday for their crimes in the corruption scheme, according to Justice Department records.

The plan to issue pardons was first reported by CBS News.

Herrera Velutini’s daughter, Isabel Herrera, donated $2.5 million in December 2024 and $1 million last July to the pro-Trump political action committee MAGA Inc., according to public records. A White House official told CBS News the donations had nothing to do with the pardon.

“Mr. Herrera Velutini is deeply grateful to President Donald J. Trump for granting his benevolent pardon and looks forward to moving on with his life and dedicating his time to his family and career,” his attorney Chris Kise told CBS News.

The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which was largely dismantled last year, charged all three men in 2022 with conspiracy, federal program bribery and honest services wire fraud in connection with Vázquez’s 2020 campaign.

All three defendants pleaded guilty to minor corruption charges in August, after the Justice Department abruptly reached a deal with the defendants as the case neared trial.

Among the defense lawyers who helped broker the deal with Mr. Trump’s Justice Department was Chris Kisewho previously defended the president over criminal charges that he retained classified information after leaving the White House in early 2021.

Last year, as the trial approached, Kise met with senior department officials and sought to convince them to drop or reduce the charges against them, sources told CBS News.

It is one of several corruption cases that defense attorneys sought to have dismissed last year, arguing without evidence that they were examples of weaponization by the Biden administration, the sources previously said.

Trump officials have said they believe the case is politically motivated, noting that the investigation into Vázquez began in 2020, days after she supported Mr. Trump.

“Ms. Vázquez’s pardon documents indicate that there was never any element of a quid pro quo agreement and that her prosecution was politically motivated,” a White House official told CBS News, speaking anonymously because the president has not yet formally announced the pardons.

In July, the federal judge presiding over the case expressed dismay after the Justice Department said it wanted to dismiss the more serious offenses and allow the defendants to plead to lesser misdemeanor charges of violating federal campaign law.

“It is striking that the penalty imposed for violating FECA Section 30121 is a mere slap on the wrist, compared to the punishment defendants face if convicted of the conduct charged in the indictment,” wrote U.S. District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll for the District of Puerto Rico.

“But alas, the government’s decision to shift gears at the last minute is permissible because ultimately it is the government that decides how it will exercise its prosecutorial discretion,” she added.

The Public Integrity Section, which prosecuted the case in conjunction with the local U.S. attorney’s office, was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal and was tasked with handling some of the most politically sensitive prosecutions.

Last year, the Justice Department ordered him to stop consulting with U.S. attorneys, and all but two of his prosecutors were transferred to other positions within the department.

As the section collapsed, Mr. Trump reversed much of its work over the past year, pardoning large numbers of defendants the section had successfully prosecuted or was in the process of prosecuting.

Among those pardoned are Democratic Representative Henry Cuellarformer Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, former Tennessee state lawmaker Brian Kelsey, a former Virginia sheriff and a Las Vegas city councilwoman.

Mr. Trump also commuted the prison sentence of a former Republican. Representative George Santos.