President Donald Trump has pardoned former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, who pleaded guilty last year to a campaign finance violation, and two co-defendants in the federal case.
The pardons marked the latest instance of Trump using his clemency powers to reward allies and those who have financially supported his political operation. It also marked yet another case undone amid a wider Justice Department retreat from the type of sweeping public corruption investigations it has pursued in the past.
In 2022, Vazquez was charged in a felony bribery case alleging that in return for promises of political favors, she accepted payoffs in the form of illegal campaign donations related to her unsuccessful 2020 gubernatorial bid.
Prosecutors accused Vázquez of accepting more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from Venezuelan-Italian banker Julio Herrera Velutini in exchange for an agreement that she would fire a local banking official whom Herrera disapproved of. Herrera and Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent who prosecutors said served as an intermediary in the bribery scheme, were also charged in Vázquez’s case and also received pardons.
The trio of defendants fought against the charges for years before the Justice Department abruptly told a court last year that it had struck a deal to end the case. Prosecutors withdrew the felony indictment and allowed them each to plead guilty in August 2025 to a single misdemeanor campaign finance charge.
The agreement shrank the potential prison time Vázquez and the others were facing from up to 20 years to a maximum of one year — and quickly drew skepticism from the judge overseeing the case.
In a written order in July, U.S. District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll described the newly proposed punishment as “a mere slap on the wrist” after years of prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Puerto Rico “zealously” pursuing the case.
She acknowledged that in abandoning the felony case, the local prosecutors were “following directives presumably issued by Main Justice.”
In lobbying for the more lenient deal, defense attorneys argued to Justice Department officials in Washington that Vázquez had been targeted for prosecution in part because of her endorsement of Trump.
Herrera was represented in those negotiations by Christopher Kise, a lawyer who previously represented Trump in his case over mishandling classified documents. Herrera’s daughter donated $2.5 million to a Trump-linked super PAC in 2024 while the felony indictment remained pending. She donated another $1 million in July 2025.
“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.
Attorneys for Vázquez and Rossini did not immediately return requests for comment.
In a statement Friday, a White House official described the case against Vázquez, Herrera and Rossini as a politically motivated prosecution.
Vázquez had argued in papers seeking her pardon that there was never any quid pro quo agreement between her and Herrera and that the Justice Department had improperly monitored her 2020 campaign for governor and Trump’s presidential campaign that year as part of the investigation, the official said.
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