By Gram Slattery and Jasper Ward
PALM BEACH, Oct 31 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Saturday it was “unacceptable” for one of his former lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, to secure a $50 million contract for herself while working at the US Department of Justice.
“I thought it was totally obnoxious and outrageous, and it’s not acceptable,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. “Not acceptable at all.”
The New York Times reported last week that the family of Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan banker facing US felony bribery charges before striking a plea deal in August 2025, guaranteed Habba Mildon more than $50 million over four years. The deal, according to the newspaper, would pay $10 million a year plus bonuses.
Trump said he told Habba Mildon he did not want her to be paid and called the episode “terrible.”
Habba Mildon was serving as the acting US attorney in New Jersey when she signed the contract with Herrera’s family company, Concord Partners, days after it was registered in late October 2025, the New York Times reported.
By the time she started her employment with the Herrera family, a court had disqualified her from serving as US attorney. She resigned on December 8 and was appointed a senior adviser to the attorney general the same day, and was still in that role when, according to the New York Times, she started at Concord on January 1.
Trump pardoned Herrera on January 15, 2026, according to the Justice Department’s website.
Habba Mildon last week said she was never paid for a pardon, never met with anyone at the White House or Justice Department about a pardon, and never did any work for a pardon for anyone.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Palm Beach and Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non and Lincoln Feast.)
