Overview
- Vázquez received a presidential pardon on Friday, and a White House official said co-defendants Julio Martín Herrera Velutini and Mark Rossini will also be pardoned.
- She pleaded guilty in August to a reduced campaign finance misdemeanor under a deal that followed the Justice Department’s decision to drop more serious bribery and fraud charges.
- Prosecutors had alleged a 2019–2020 scheme to secure funding for Vázquez’s campaign in exchange for replacing Puerto Rico’s top bank regulator while Herrera Velutini’s bank faced scrutiny.
- The White House says her pardon petition asserts there was no quid pro quo and argues the prosecution was politically motivated.
- A federal judge criticized DOJ’s eleventh-hour charge reduction as a “slap on the wrist,” and the case was among several once handled by the now-diminished Public Integrity Section that have since seen clemency.