Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez speaks during a press conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 19, 2020.
Ricardo Arduengo | Reuters
President Donald Trump is considering pardoning former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez, a White House official said Friday.
Vázquez pleaded guilty last August to campaign finance violations in a federal case that authorities said also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. His sentencing was set for the end of the month.
Federal prosecutors were seeking a year in prison, which Vázquez’s lawyers opposed by accusing prosecutors of violating a guilty plea deal reached last year that resulted in previous charges, including bribery and fraud, being dropped.
They noted that Vázquez agreed to plead guilty to accepting a promised campaign contribution that was never received.
Vázquez’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The official who confirmed the planned pardon indicated that Trump viewed the case as a political prosecution and said the investigation into Vázquez, a Republican aligned with the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, began 10 days after she supported Trump in 2020. The official was not authorized to reveal the news by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pablo José Hernández, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress and a member of the island’s main opposition party, condemned Vázquez’s pardon.
“Impunity protects and promotes corruption. Pardon… undermines public integrity, shatters confidence in justice and offends those of us who believe in honest governance,” said Hernández, a Democrat from the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico.
Vázquez, a lawyer, was the first former governor of the U.S. territory 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 participating in a corruption scheme from December 2019 to June 2020 while she was governor. At the time, she told reporters she was innocent.
Authorities said Puerto Rico’s Office of the Financial Institutions Commissioner was investigating an international bank owned by Venezuelan Julio Martín Herrera Velutini because of alleged suspicious transactions that were not 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 it fired the commissioner and appointed a new one of Herrera’s choosing.
Authorities said Vázquez requested the commissioner’s resignation in February 2020 after allegedly accepting the bribe offer. She is also accused of having appointed a new commissioner in May 2020: a former consultant from Bank Herrera.
Vázquez was the second woman to serve as governor of Puerto Rico and the first former governor to face federal charges.
She was sworn in as governor in August 2019 after former governor Ricardo Rosselló resigned following massive protests. Vázquez served until 2021, after losing the pro-statehood New Progressive Party’s primary to former governor Pedro Pierluisi.
Source | domain www.cnbc.com
