President Donald Trump erupted last week after learning that one of his former personal lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, had signed a contract worth more than $50 million to work for the family of a Venezuelan billionaire who had been seeking — and soon received — a presidential pardon, according to a New York Times report published this week. Angered by the scale of the deal, Trump told aides and allies that Mildon should donate a portion of the money to his future presidential library or to another Trump-related entity, the newspaper reported, citing multiple people briefed on the conversations.
The report has ignited a fresh round of scrutiny over the intersection of presidential clemency, private legal fees and the lucrative consulting work that orbits this White House. Mildon has responded forcefully, denying that her employment had anything to do with securing the pardon and calling any such suggestion false and defamatory. The White House has not publicly detailed the president’s private conversations, and the account of his anger rests on the Times’ sourcing — a point worth keeping in view as the story develops.
What is not in dispute is the underlying sequence: a lawyer who once defended the president in court, and later served as an adviser at the Justice Department, signed an extraordinarily rich contract with the family of Julio Herrera Velutini, a billionaire who was then seeking clemency. She began work on January 1. Weeks later, Trump granted Herrera a full and unconditional pardon.
The Alina Habba $50 Million Deal at the Center of the Storm
According to the Times, which based its account on interviews and documents it obtained, Mildon signed a four-year agreement to serve as general counsel for Concord Partners, a company established by Herrera’s daughter. The contract calls for payments of $10 million a year, together with a range of bonuses, guaranteeing her more than $50 million over the life of the agreement — a sum that dwarfs the compensation of even the most sought-after private attorneys in Washington.
Concord Partners itself remains something of a mystery. The company has little public profile, and the newspaper reported that even some people associated with the Herrera family’s wider business empire were unclear about what the firm actually does. That opacity, combined with the size of the payments, is a large part of what drew the president’s attention when the arrangement came to his notice last week.
It is important to be precise about what has and has not been established. The existence of a large legal-services contract, as described by the Times, does not by itself prove wrongdoing by anyone. Presidents’ former lawyers routinely take lucrative private work, and families facing legal jeopardy routinely hire well-connected counsel. The controversy arises from the timing — a pardon sought, a contract signed, a pardon granted — and from the president’s own reported reaction once he learned the numbers involved.
The Pardon That Arrived Weeks After She Started Work
Herrera’s path to a pardon ran through years of legal trouble. He had faced felony bribery charges before reaching a plea agreement in 2025, under which he ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation. By the time Mildon formally began working for his family’s company on January 1, the billionaire was seeking a presidential pardon that would wipe away what remained of his conviction.
Weeks later, Trump granted that pardon — full and unconditional — for the misdemeanor offense. The lawyer who represented Herrera in the pardon case itself was Christopher M. Kise, another former Trump attorney, a fact the Times had previously reported and one Mildon herself pointed to in her public response. After the newspaper’s latest story appeared, Trump also discussed its reporting directly with Kise, according to the account.
The sequence has drawn predictable criticism from the president’s opponents, who argue that it illustrates how access and money move around the clemency process. No evidence has been presented publicly that the pardon was exchanged for the contract, and Mildon insists none exists. But in Washington, the appearance of a transaction can carry political weight of its own — particularly when the president himself is reported to be furious about the money involved.
Trump’s Private Reaction, According to the Report
The Times reported that Trump raged about the scale of the contract in calls with allies last week. Beyond suggesting that Mildon should divert a portion of the money to his presidential library or another of his causes, the president reportedly told at least one ally that the Herrera family should not pay out the remainder of the agreement at all — a message that, according to the report, was subsequently conveyed to the family.
Trump also spoke directly with Mildon about the contract, the newspaper said, although it remains unclear whether he asked her personally to make a donation or confined that idea to his conversations with others. The distinction matters: a president venting about a former aide’s windfall is one thing; a president pressing for a share of a private contract connected in time to a pardon he granted would raise far sharper ethical questions, and it is precisely the territory Mildon’s denial stakes out.
The library angle gives the episode its unusual edge. Trump is seeking to raise $1 billion for a presidential library planned for Miami, an effort that has already become a magnet for donations from people and companies with interests before the federal government. Against that backdrop, a reported expectation that a former lawyer’s private fee might be shared with the library fund was bound to draw attention far beyond the legal community.
Habba’s Denial and the Questions That Remain
Mildon answered the report in a lengthy statement on X, rejecting any link between her job and the pardon. She noted that after leaving public service she had returned to practicing law, pointed out that the Times had previously credited Kise — “another capable attorney” — with successfully handling the pardon matter without her, and insisted her employment had been vetted and disclosed to the Justice Department. Any insinuation that her employment had anything to do with securing a pardon, she wrote, is false and defamatory.
She also objected to being referred to by her former name, Alina Habba, rather than Alina Mildon, accusing the newspaper of doing so deliberately for clicks, and she urged readers not to let media coverage distract from the administration’s work. Her statement did not dispute the existence or the size of the contract as the Times described it; it disputed the implication that the contract and the pardon were connected.
That leaves the core factual dispute cleanly drawn. The Times’ account, drawn from people briefed on private conversations, portrays a president angry that a former lawyer monetized proximity to a pardon he had granted, and eager to redirect some of the proceeds to his own legacy project. Mildon portrays an ordinary, disclosed post-government legal engagement that had nothing to do with clemency. Until documents or on-the-record accounts emerge, readers are left with two incompatible versions — which is itself part of the story of how this White House’s pardon economy is perceived.
A Familiar Pattern: Advisers’ Fees and the Library Fund
Wednesday’s report was not the first time Trump has bristled at advisers earning large fees from outside work. Earlier this month, he distanced himself from two senior Republican midterm strategists, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, after reports that each had received hundreds of thousands of dollars for advising Republika Srpska, a pro-Russian Balkan government entity. Following the president’s public criticism, both men said they would donate their consulting fees to Trump’s presidential library fund, and Blair publicly framed the gift as an honor. Trump later told reporters he had not explicitly instructed them to contribute, describing the donations as a nice thing to do.
The parallel is instructive. In both episodes, money earned by people in the president’s orbit from controversial clients became, after his displeasure became known, money discussed in connection with his library. Political ethics experts have long warned that when a president’s personal foundation or legacy project becomes the destination for such funds, the line between private income and public influence blurs — whatever the intentions of the individuals involved.
For now, the Mildon contract stands as reported, the pardon stands as granted, and the president’s reported demand for a share stands denied in its implications by the lawyer at its center. With the midterms days away and the library’s fundraising drive still short of its billion-dollar ambition, the story is likely to resurface each time clemency and cash appear in the same sentence in this administration.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from MEAWW, Political Wire and ENM News.