President Trump plans to pardon Puerto Rico’s former governor, Wanda Vázquez Garced, who pleaded guilty last year in a federal public corruption case, multiple sources told CBS News on Friday.
Her two co-defendants, the billionaire Venezuelan-Italian banker and Britannia Financial Group founder Julio Martin Herrera-Velutini and Mark Rossini, will also be pardoned for their crimes in the bribery scheme, two of the sources said.
The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which last year was largely dismantled, charged the three in 2022 with conspiracy, federal programs bribery, and honest services wire fraud in connection with Vázquez’s 2020 campaign.
All three defendants pleaded guilty to lesser corruption charges in August, after the Justice Department abruptly cut a deal with the defendants as the case was nearing trial.
Among the defense attorneys who helped broker the deal with Mr. Trump’s Justice Department was Chris Kise, who previously defended the president over criminal charges that he retained classified information after departing 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, sources previously told CBS News.
It was one of corruption cases in which defense lawyers in the last year have sought to have dismissed, claiming without evidence they were examples of weaponization by the Biden administration, the sources previously said.
Trump officials have said they believed the case was politically motivated, noting the investigation into Vázquez started in 2020, days after she had endorsed Mr. Trump.
“Ms. Vázquez’s pardon materials state that there was never any element of a quid pro quo deal and that her prosecution was politically motivated,” a White House official told CBS News, speaking anonymously because the president hasn’t 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 most serious offenses and allow the defendants to plead to lesser misdemeanor charges of violating the Federal Electoral Campaign Act.
“Strikingly, the penalty for violating Section 30121 of the FECA is a mere slap on the wrist when compared to the sentencing exposure the defendants faced 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 eleventh hour is allowed because ultimately the Government decides how it will exercise its prosecutorial discretion,” she added.
The Public Integrity Section, which prosecuted the case along with the local U.S. Attorney’s office, was established 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 it to stop consulting with U.S. attorneys, and it had all but two of its prosecutors transferred into other jobs throughout the department.
As the section has unraveled, Mr. Trump has undone much of its work over the past year, pardoning a slew of defendants the section had successfully prosecuted or were in the process of prosecuting.
Among those pardoned include Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, former Tennessee state lawmaker Brian Kelsey, a former Virginia sheriff and a Las Vegas councilwoman.
Mr. Trump also commuted the prison sentence for former Republican Rep. George Santos.
