Alina Habba Mildon, President Trump’s former personal lawyer, has been fired from a $50 million, four-year contract with Concord Partners, a Florida-based company controlled by the family of pardoned Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini.
A Nov. 4 termination letter obtained by the New York Times cites a “failure to perform duties.” The company, set up by Herrera’s daughter, had hired Habba Mildon as general counsel with annual payments of $10 million plus bonuses.
The firing comes just days after Trump publicly denounced the arrangement, calling it “totally obnoxious and outrageous” during remarks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Halloween.
“I told her, and I said, ‘I don’t want her paid,'” Trump said, adding that he had asked someone to speak with the people behind the deal.
Trump reportedly also urged aides and allies to press the Herrera family to stop paying Habba Mildon, and suggested she instead direct some of the money toward his future presidential library or another Trump-affiliated entity.
Habba Mildon will keep the $8 million signing bonus and $6.5 million in additional payments already paid out, according to the Times. She declined to comment on the termination, but a person close to her said she intends to pursue legal action.
A person close to the Herrera family told the Times that Habba Mildon’s attention to the role appeared to wane after she began dating Turkish investor Turhan Mildon, whom she married in September.
Timing Questions
The sequence of events has drawn scrutiny. Habba signed the Concord Partners agreement in late October 2025 while serving as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. She began the Concord job on Jan. 1, 2026, by which point she had moved into a role as senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Julio Herrera had faced federal bribery charges connected to an alleged scheme involving Puerto Rico’s governor, and reached a plea deal in August 2025 on a misdemeanor campaign finance violation. Trump granted him a full and unconditional pardon on Jan. 15, 2026 — just two weeks after Habba Mildon started working for the family’s company.
Habba Mildon has rejected any suggestion of a connection between the two.
“Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the DOJ — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false,” she has said.
Habba’s tenure in New Jersey also ended under a cloud: a federal appeals court found she had been serving unlawfully as acting U.S. attorney, forcing her resignation in December 2025.
