The New York Times reported that Alina Habba secured a contract worth about $50 million from a Venezuelan billionaire’s family, according to summaries and coverage by other outlets; the reporting says the agreement was reached while she still held a Justice Department advisory role and before she left government service.
Reporting by outlets summarizing the Times account says the family of banker Julio Herrera Velutini proposed paying Habba roughly $10 million a year for four years plus potential bonuses, a package that would total about $50 million, and that she was named general counsel to a company set up by Herrera’s daughter.
According to the coverage, Habba began work for the family company in January, and weeks later President Trump granted Julio Herrera Velutini a full, unconditional pardon; those timelines appear in the Times-based summaries published by other outlets.
Habba has denied any role in securing the pardon. The Independent paraphrases her statement to the Times: “Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the D.O.J. — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false,” and notes she said she never met with White House or DOJ officials about a pardon.
What reporting says and what remains unclear
Outlets summarizing the New York Times say sources suggested Habba was hired in part to help obtain clemency, but those accounts attribute that claim to people with knowledge of the contract rather than to a public admission or court filing. The Independent notes the company named in the reporting has no public footprint.
Neither the original Times article nor the summaries we opened for this piece provide a public contract document in the scraped copies available here; the Independent and Democracy Now describe the deal terms and the sequence of Habba’s hiring and the subsequent pardon as reported by the Times. Habba’s denial, as quoted by the Independent, is presented in the reporting.
Why this matters: the reporting links a high-value private contract to a clemency decision, which raises questions about conflicts of interest and the ethics rules that cover special government employees. The summaries cite timelines and source descriptions rather than a public filing that explicitly ties payment to the pardon.
Sources
- The Independent — summarized the Times reporting; provided deal terms ($10M per year for four years) and Habba’s quoted denial.
- Democracy Now! — relayed the Times account that Habba took a role with a family company and that a pardon followed weeks after she started.
