Halloween afternoon at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump told reporters he opposed the money flowing to his former personal attorney, Alina Habba Mildon.
Four days later, the contract paying her was gone.
A letter dated Nov. 4 and obtained by the New York Times shows Concord Partners fired Habba Mildon. The Florida company gave one reason: a “failure to perform duties.”
Concord was founded by the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan banker whom Trump pardoned earlier this year.
The firm had hired Habba Mildon as general counsel and guaranteed her more than $50 million over four years.
The deal paid $10 million annually, with bonuses on top.
Habba Mildon is reportedly not returning the money she already collected.
She received an $8 million signing bonus and $6.5 million in additional payments, and both sums are expected to stay with her.
A person close to the Herrera family offered the Times an explanation for the firing.
According to that person, her priorities shifted after she started dating Turkish investor Turhan Mildon. The couple married in September.
Habba Mildon declined to discuss the termination with the Times. A person close to her said she intends to take legal action.
Trump had already weighed in by then. At Mar-a-Lago, he said he had told his former lawyer directly that he did not want her collecting the payments.
“I thought it was totally obnoxious and outrageous, and it’s not acceptable,” Trump told reporters.
He described the message he delivered to her this way: “I told her, and I said, ‘I don’t want her paid,’” the president said. He added that he had asked someone to speak with the people behind the deal.
Trump also reportedly pressed aides and allies to relay a message to the Herrera family: stop the payments.
He reportedly floated another idea as well, that Habba Mildon give a portion of the money to his future presidential library or a different Trump-linked entity.
The contract’s dates fall inside a busy stretch of her government career. Habba signed in late October 2025, when she served as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey.
Her first day with Concord Partners came on Jan. 1, 2026. She held the title of senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi at the time.
Herrera’s legal history runs through the same months. Federal prosecutors had charged him with bribery in connection with an alleged scheme involving Puerto Rico’s governor.
In August 2025, he struck a plea deal and admitted to a misdemeanor campaign finance violation.
Trump pardoned him fully and unconditionally on Jan. 15, 2026. That date landed two weeks after Habba Mildon began working for the company his family backs.
The overlap between her contract and the family’s push for a pardon prompted questions about the arrangement. Habba Mildon has rejected any connection.
“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 said previously.
Before joining the Justice Department, Habba Mildon served as Trump’s personal attorney.
Her stint as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor ended in controversy: a federal appeals court ruled she had held the post unlawfully, and she resigned in December 2025.
