In March, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired after it was revealed she and her assistant, Corey Lewandowski, had been funneling multi-million dollar contracts to a political ally for self-serving TV advertisements. On Oct. 13, Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle resigned under pressure from the administration when it was reported she had shaken down a donor for $100,000 to pay her American Express bill. This week, Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, said, “Hold my beer, ladies,” when The New York Times reported she had been given a $50 million personal contract in exchange for securing a presidential pardon.
Habba is the perfect example of the Trump insider. A graduate of Widener University Commonwealth Law School, she practiced law at her first husband’s firm and served as general counsel for a parking garage company owned by her second husband. A New Jersey local, she caught the president’s eye when she joined his Bedminster Law Firm and soon appeared on Fox News, where she defended him in the way that pleased him. In September 2021, Trump hired her for his legal team. One of her first actions was to file a $100 million lawsuit against The New York Times and Mary Trump, the president’s niece, and take over defending Trump in a defamation case brought by a former contestant of “The Apprentice” after several veteran lawyers withdrew. The Times case was dismissed for “fail[ing] as a matter of constitutional law.” The former contestant dropped hers after Habba countersued her for trying to “stifle Donald Trump’s free speech.”
Habba was part of the team that represented Trump in the fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, where the lawyer’s main contribution appeared to be mimicking Trump’s patented mugshot glower before the cameras. She served as lead attorney in the E. Jean Carroll case, during which the judge admonished her repeatedly for her poor legal skills. The case ended up with a jury awarding Carroll $83.3 million in damages.
But Habba’s most infamous case as the president’s personal lawyer was one brought in the Southern District of Florida in May 2022. Trump sued the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Jake Sullivan, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others for allegedly perpetrating “a calculated scheme to defraud the news media, law enforcement, and counterintelligence officials for the purpose of proliferating a false narrative of collusion between Trump and Russia.”
U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks was not amused. Four months later, he dismissed the case, saying it was inadequate in all respects. In January 2023 he sanctioned Trump and Habba to the tune of nearly $1 million, writing, “Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose.”
Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Naturally, Trump appealed, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. Earlier this month, the sorest loser appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
Habba’s record as the president’s personal attorney speaks for itself. She didn’t fail up as spectacularly as U.S. Circuit Judge Emil Bove and Attorney General Todd Blanche, but Trump did bring her into the White House as counselor to the president and later nominated her to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
As interim U.S. attorney, Habba immediately began to cause chaos. Like Noem, she cosplayed as U.S. Marshal and announced she would pursue political prosecutions of prominent New Jersey Democrats, including the governor. A panel of judges, following the law, refused to allow Habba to serve in an interim capacity, forcing Trump to withdraw her name from consideration for the job, designating her acting U.S. attorney instead. Eventually, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that Habba was not lawfully appointed to that post as well, disqualifying her from the position.
We need your help to stay independent.
She was then hired to a post clearly made up on the fly, pending a reversal of the opinion, in which case she would be reappointed as U.S. Attorney. That never came about, and at least according to what we learned from the explosive New York Times report, Habba had other plans anyway.
As it happens, right around that time a Venezuelan billionaire banker named Julio Herrera Velutini wanted a pardon. He had already been given a very generous deal by Trump’s Justice Department, which had reduced felony bribery charges to a misdemeanor, but he wanted his record cleared completely. He hired Christopher Kice, another of Trump’s former personal lawyers, to help him grease the skids. To sweeten the pot, Herrera’s daughter, who holds U.S. citizenship, had contributed $3.5 million to Trump’s super PAC. But by fall 2025, nothing had happened, so the Herrera family decided to hire someone with a little more juice. They tapped Habba, who was still working at the Justice Department, and allegedly offered her $10 million a year for four years and at least $10 million in bonuses.
They created a company, Concord Partners, which has no known business dealings, and in January 2026 Habba signed on as its general counsel. Days after she took the position, Trump granted Herrera the pardon.
This is the most egregious case involving the sale of pardons under Trump that we’ve heard about . . . The grift has become so blatant that the public has finally started to notice — and they don’t like what they see.
This is the most egregious case involving the sale of pardons under Trump that we’ve heard about. According to various reports, procuring presidential pardons has apparently become a cottage industry among many MAGA insiders, who are becoming wealthy trading on their access to Trump. For his part, the president appears to be handing them out to Republicans like Hershey bars on Halloween. The grift has become so blatant that the public has finally started to notice — and they don’t like what they see.
Habba apparently hasn’t yet collected her fee, and this revelation may just end up depriving her of most of it. But she needn’t worry. She just married a much younger Turkish billionaire named Turhan Mildon in a reported $10 million wedding attended by fellow Trump officials including Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and civil rights division head Harmeet Dhillon. Habba has no financial worries, and there will almost certainly be no legal ramifications for this flagrant conflict of interest and pay-to-play scheme.
But she is embroiled in yet another convoluted scandal involving her new husband, in which he supposedly sent $17 million to Richard Grenell, Trump’s former adviser to Venezuela who currently serves as director of the embattled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This donation, later determined to have actually been sent from the Republic of Congo, where Mildon has many business dealings, went to a Texas defense contractor. Habba is alleging that the portion meant for the Kennedy Center — an obvious sop to Trump after he took it over — never made it.
The full contours of this dispute are not yet clear, and Grenell has denied any knowledge of the matter. But never fear: The White House is on it. Trump assigned Will Scharf, the White House counsel, to look into the matter, and no doubt Habba was pleased. After all, Scharf was one of the honored guests at her wedding. It’s nice to keep it all in the family.
Read more
about Trump administration corruption
The post Alina Habba’s $50 million scandal exposes MAGA pardon racket appeared first on Salon.com.