Alina Habba lost her $50 million-plus contract days after President Donald Trump publicly blasted the deal. Concord Partners, a Florida company founded last year by the daughter of a Venezuelan banker Trump later pardoned, cited a failure to perform her duties in a November 4 termination letter. Trump’s former personal lawyer reportedly gets to keep the $6.5 million she had already been paid, along with her $8 million signing bonus.
Trump was asked about the contract at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 31. He’d already told Habba what he thought of it.
"I thought it was terrible. I told her, and I said, 'I don’t want her paid.'”
Trump said Habba had used her relationship with him and colleagues in the White House to get the deal and called it “totally obnoxious and outrageous.” She signed it in October 2025 while still serving as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. The contract called for $10 million a year for four years, plus bonuses.
Habba resigned as acting U.S. attorney in December 2025 after an appeals court ruled she was unlawfully serving in the job. She became a senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi and was still at the Justice Department when she started work as general counsel for Concord on January 1.
Concord’s founder, Isabela Herrera, is the daughter of Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini, who faced felony bribery charges in Puerto Rico until a plea deal cut them to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation. Isabela Herrera had also donated $3.5 million to a super PAC tied to Trump. Two weeks after Habba started at Concord, on January 15, Trump granted Velutini a full and unconditional pardon.
In an October 21 post on X, Habba said she’d never met with anyone at the White House or the Justice Department about a pardon. She was equally blunt about the money.
The Fake News still seems very confused by this so let me be even more clear: I was never paid to secure a pardon. I never met with anyone at the White House or DOJ about a pardon. I’ve never done any work in any capacity whatsoever for a pardon for anyone, period.
— Alina Mildon (@AlinaHabba) October 21, 2026
Habba says her employment was vetted and disclosed to DOJ. The full scope of her job is still unclear. A person close to the Herrera family said she was hired to help with Julio Herrera’s criminal case and company operations, and a person close to Habba says she plans legal action over the firing.
Separately, the New Jersey ethics complaint against Habba, filed November 10, goes back to 2021, when a 21-year-old waitress at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster accused her boss of sexual harassment. State regulators allege Habba persuaded the waitress to cut off contact with her own lawyer, then helped arrange a $15,000 settlement. The complaint says the deal shortchanged the waitress and that Habba never told her she was a paying member of the club.
The waitress, Alice Bianco, later sued the club over the agreement and settled that case for $400,000. Habba’s lawyer, Kim Ringler, said the disciplinary complaint begins a lengthy process over conduct dating back more than five years.
Trump was right to call out this deal. A company run by the daughter of a man seeking a presidential pardon agreed to pay a senior Justice Department adviser $10 million a year, and a person close to the family says she was hired in part to help with his criminal case. Habba denies any role in the pardon, and no public evidence contradicts her. But a sitting Justice Department employee being paid by the family of a man seeking clemency is a problem on its face, and DOJ owes the public an answer on whether it approved the arrangement and what she told the department Concord was paying her to do.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians.
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