Trump set to pardon ex-Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez

WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump plans to pardon former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez after she pleaded guilty to bribing people to finance her 2020 campaign, a White House official confirmed to multiple news outlets.

The scheme involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker, according to the indictment. Federal prosecutors were seeking a one-year sentence, but Vázquez’s attorneys accused prosecutors of violating a guilty plea deal reached last year that saw previous charges, including bribery and fraud, dropped.

The defense noted that Vázquez had agreed to plead guilty to accepting a promise of a campaign contribution that was never received.

The official who confirmed the planned pardon said Trump saw the case as a political prosecution.

Vázquez was arrested in August 2022 as governor and accused of participating in the bribery scheme from December 2019 through June 2020.

“The criminal actions of the defendants in this case strike a blow to the heart of our democracy and further erode the confidence of our citizens in their institutions of governance,” U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow for the District of Puerto Rico said at the time.

In 2019, Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions was investigating an international bank owned by Venezuelan Julio Martín Herrera Velutini due to suspicious transactions that had not been reported.

Herrera and Mark Rossini, a former FBI agent who provided consulting services to Herrera, allegedly promised to support Vázquez’s campaign if she dismissed the commissioner and appointed a new one of Herrera’s choosing, authorities said.

Details revealed that Vázquez demanded the commissioner’s resignation in February 2020 after allegedly accepting the bribery offer. She was accused of appointing a new commissioner in May 2020: a former consultant for Herrera’s bank.

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Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.