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chairman donald trump On Wednesday he said he was granting a full pardon to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar and cleared his wife Imelda of bribery and conspiracy charges on which she was indicted by the Justice Department last year.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that CuellarThe Democrat, who has represented the Lone Star State’s 28th Congressional District since 2005, was targeted by predecessor Joe Biden. Administration Because of his hardline stance on immigration issues.
Trump said, “For years, the Biden administration weaponized the justice system against its political opponents and anyone who disagrees with them. The clearest example of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to ‘take out’ a member of his own party after highly respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against open borders and the Biden border ‘catastrophe’.”
He further accused Biden and the Justice Department of “going after the Congressman and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, just for telling the truth.”
Trump said: “Because of these facts and others, I am announcing a full and unconditional pardon of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight – your nightmare is finally over!”
The latest use of the presidential pardon power to quash a high-profile corruption investigation comes more than a year after prosecutors unsealed charges against Cuellars, accusing him of taking nearly $600,000 from an Azerbaijani-controlled company and a Mexican. Edge,
And the reversal on his predecessor came a day after a Cabinet meeting attended by Trump and his secretaries Referenced Biden dozens of times,
Prosecutors alleged that Cuellar and his wife confessed Bribe as part of an agreement to further Azerbaijan and the bank’s interests in the US, according to an indictment.
The funds were allegedly laundered through a series of shell companies and intermediaries in shell companies owned by Imelda Cuéllar.
Among other things, the congressman, who was once co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, reportedly agreed to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijani speech on the US House floor.
a dinosaur democratCuellar has long been a target of progressives given his opposition to abortion rights. In 2020 and 2022, Jessica Cisneros mounted a primary challenge against him, sending him to a runoff, in which he was victorious both times.
The House Democratic leadership has consistently supported him and believes he is the only Democrat who can win in Heavily Latino and conservative district on the borderBut despite the pardon, Cuellar told reporters he would not run for office as a Republican,
He won re-election to the House last year after facing opposition in the 2024 Democratic primary.
Longtime border hawk Cuellar has also sharply criticized other Democrats for comparatively lax policies on immigration and started a group of Democrats who support stronger measures called the Democrats for Border Security Task Force.
Cuellar’s family also has a prominent presence in his border district. His brother is the sheriff of Webb County while his sister has served as a judge for Rio Bravo and Webb County. His concentration of power has earned him the nickname “King Laredo”, where he lives.
In 2022, the FBI raided Cuellar’s congressional office and his home in Laredo. His lawyer at the time said the congressman was not the target of that investigation.
That search was part of a Comprehensive investigation related to Azerbaijan FBI agents issued a large number of subpoenas and conducted interviews in Washington DC and Texas.
Trump’s claim that Biden-era prosecutors targeted Cuellar as justification for pardoning him is the latest example of Trump taking steps to undo high-profile lawsuits brought against public figures during the previous administration.
Last week, the president freed the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez He was released from federal prison with a full pardon on drug trafficking and weapons charges on which he was convicted by a jury and sentenced by a federal judge to 45 years in prison.
Hernandez, whose brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez was sentenced to life in US prison after pleading guilty to drug charges in Manhattan federal court in 2021, used his authority as head of state of Honduras to ask Honduras’ military and national police forces to provide assistance to drug smugglers as they smuggled tons of cocaine into the United States.
At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he had worked with drug traffickers until 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes to rise from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.
Witnesses at the trial included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernandez was a zealous protector of some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US.
The investigation that led to the conviction of the former Honduran president was at one point led by Trump’s former personal attorney, Emil Bove, who was a federal prosecutor at the time. Trump appointed Bove to the post of federal judge for life, and the Senate confirmed him to that role earlier this year.
Despite significant evidence against Hernandez, which led to the jury’s conviction, Trump claimed last week that the entire case was a “Biden set-up”, telling reporters on Air Force One that he “looked at the facts” and agreed with Hernandez’s claim that the prosecution was politically motivated.
“It was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country and he basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country,” Mr. Trump said, “and he said that was the arrangement of the Biden administration. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them,” he said.