Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez speaks at a news conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico Jan. 19, 2020.
Ricardo Arduengo | Reuters
President Donald Trump plans to pardon former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez, a White House official said Friday.
Vázquez pleaded guilty last August to a campaign finance violation in a federal case that authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. Her sentencing was set for later this month.
Federal prosecutors had been seeking one year behind bars, something that Vázquez’s attorneys opposed as they accused prosecutors of violating a guilty plea deal reached last year that saw previous charges including bribery and fraud dropped.
They noted that Vázquez had agreed to plead guilty to accepting a promise of a campaign contribution that was never received.
Attorneys for Vázquez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The official who confirmed the planned pardon indicated Trump saw the case as political prosecution and said the investigation into Vázquez, a Republican aligned with the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, had begun 10 days after she endorsed Trump in 2020. The official wasn’t authorized to reveal the news by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Pablo José Hernández, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress and a member of the island’s main opposition party, condemned a pardon for Vázquez.
“Impunity protects and fosters corruption. The pardon … undermines public integrity, shatters faith in justice, and offends those of us who believe in honest governance,” said Hernández, a Democrat with Puerto Rico’s Popular Democratic Party.
Vázquez, an attorney, was the U.S. territory’s first former governor to plead guilty to a crime, specifically accepting a donation from a foreigner for her 2020 political campaign.
She was arrested in August 2022 and accused of engaging in a bribery scheme from December 2019 through June 2020 while governor. At the time, she told reporters that she was innocent.
Authorities said that Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions was investigating an international bank owned by Venezuelan Julio Martín Herrera Velutini because of alleged suspicious transactions that had not been reported by the bank.
Authorities said 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 appointing a new one of Herrera’s choosing.
Authorities said Vázquez demanded the commissioner’s resignation in February 2020 after allegedly accepting the bribery offer. She also was accused of appointing a new commissioner in May 2020: a former consultant for Herrera’s bank.
Vázquez was the second woman to serve as Puerto Rico’s governor and the first former governor to face federal charges.
She was sworn in as governor in August 2019 after former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned following massive protests. Vázquez served until 2021, after losing the primaries of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party to former Gov. Pedro Pierluisi.
