President Trump on Saturday sharply criticized his former lawyer, Alina Habba Mildon, calling it “totally obnoxious and outrageous” that she entered into a $50 million deal for work with a billionaire Venezuelan family that was seeking a pardon from him.
The president made the remarks at a Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., when reporters asked him about the contract. “I thought it was terrible,” he said. “I told her, and I said, ‘I don’t want her paid.’ I thought we had somebody speak to the people that did it, and she used her relationship to do that. And it was far too much.”
According to interviews and documents obtained by The Times, the four-year contract called for the Herrera family to pay Mrs. Mildon $10 million a year along with a variety of bonuses, for a guaranteed total of more than $50 million. It is unclear whether the deal can be terminated early. Mrs. Mildon signed on last year as general counsel for a company started by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini while she was serving as a senior adviser at the Justice Department.
She formally began her work for the family on Jan. 1. Weeks later, Mr. Trump granted Mr. Herrera a full and unconditional pardon for a misdemeanor campaign finance violation. Mr. Herrera had faced felony bribery charges but struck an unusually lenient plea deal in 2025. Mrs. Mildon previously said she played no role in his pardon.
When Mr. Trump first learned of the arrangement from a New York Times article, he erupted and told aides and allies that Mrs. Mildon should donate a portion of the money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity. On Saturday he said he did not necessarily expect her to make such a donation, but suggested that someone should. “I expect maybe the people,” he said of the Herrera family. “I don’t know if anybody wants to make it. But it’s unacceptable what she did.”
Mrs. Mildon served as a personal lawyer to Mr. Trump and then briefly as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey. She did not respond to a request for comment about the president’s criticism on Saturday.
Sources: The New York Times Politics.