The battle for influence around President Donald Trump will turn into a bloodbath as his second term winds down and Democrats threaten to weaken his power after the midterms, his longtime biographer predicted.
Author Michael Wolff speculated that more and more people would jockey for influence in the president’s inner circle—even after former Justice Department official Alina Habba was busted locking down a $50 million deal with the family of a scandal-ridden Venezuelan billionaire who later secured a pardon from Trump.
A bombshell report by The New York Times earlier revealed that the family of Julio Herrera Velutini, a billionaire banker from Venezuela, hired then-DOJ adviser Habba as general counsel for a shadowy company called Concord Partners. Weeks later, Trump granted Herrera Velutini a full and unconditional pardon over a misdemeanor campaign finance violation.
Wolff said the controversy was a reflection of the broader “Donald Trump ecosystem.”
“It’s all about influence,” he told Inside Trump’s Head co-host Joanna Coles. “Strong men in a kind of authoritarian, despotic roles, that’s what they do, is that they sell their influence. That’s how they maintain their power, is by putting it up for grabs for other people to make money off of. So everybody then makes money off of this central power in the middle. And that’s also what happens with Donald Trump.”
“But that’s what so many other people around Donald Trump are also doing,” he continued. “And this is going to get more intense as the end comes for the Trump administration—and the feeling may be that it is ending much sooner with Tuesday’s election—is that everybody is going to be so much more focused on getting what they can while the getting is good, which is going to increase the pressure, increase the the resentments, increase the competition around Trump, and it’s going to be bloody.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. Previously, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “Michael Wolff is a professional scumbag and serial liar whose brain has been completely warped by his severe and incurable disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Habba, the DOJ, and the White House have all vigorously contested The Times’ reporting.
“Any insinuation that my employment — all of which has been vetted and disclosed to the D.O.J. — had anything to do with securing a pardon is false and defamatory,” Habba wrote in one of two statements posted on social media.
Habba, a former Trump lawyer, stepped down as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey last year after a court ruled that she had been unlawfully serving for too long without Senate confirmation.
The White House similarly said Habba had nothing to do with the pardon, adding to the Times that the administration follows a pardon review process that includes the White House Counsel’s Office and the DOJ.
The Daily Beast did not receive a response from Concord Partners and Herrera Velutini.
The Times’ exposé sent Trump into a fit of rage, according to subsequent reporting from the outlet. Trump told aides and allies that Habba should donate a portion of the $50 million to his future presidential library or another Trump-linked entity, insiders said.
Habba, meanwhile, has remained defiant.
“I was never paid to secure a pardon. I never met with anyone at the White House or DOJ about a pardon. I’ve never done any work in any capacity whatsoever for a pardon for anyone, period,” she wrote on X.
