The Trump pardon of Henry Cuellar erases a $600,000 bribery case and intensifies allegations of political interference at the DOJ.
President Trump on Wednesday pardoned Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, who was awaiting trial on charges that he and his wife had taken roughly $600,000 worth of bribes from an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank.
The indictment against Mr. Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, filed last year in Houston, centered on accusations of bribery and money laundering. Despite Mr. Cuellar’s political affiliation, Mr. Trump has expressed public support for him, citing his willingness to speak out against Biden-era border policies.
“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, blaming the case on what he described as a weaponized Justice Department under the Biden administration. “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
In a post on social media, Mr. Cuellar responded by thanking the president “for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts.” He added: “I thank God for standing with my family and I during this difficult time. This decision clears the air and lets us move forward for South Texas.”
The pardon, which Mr. Trump also extended to Mr. Cuellar’s wife, is another blow to the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which has been decided after a standoff in February with a top department official at the time, Emil Bove III, who demanded that the section’s lawyers seek to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City. The department ultimately moved to drop the prosecution, offering a highly unusual rationale: that it was harming Mr. Adams’s ability to aid Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.
For months, career prosecutors at the department have feared that Mr. Trump would torpedo the Cuellar case, as his administration has frequently criticized corruption cases filed before he was elected. The Cuellars’ trial was scheduled to begin next year.
According to the indictment, from 2014 through 2021, the Cuellars accepted about $600,000 worth of bribes from two foreign companies. The first was an oil and gas company owned and controlled by the government of Azerbaijan. The second was a bank, based in Mexico City.
Ms. Cuellar was also accused of using shell companies to receive income from bogus consulting contracts, for which she did little to no real work.
In exchange for the bribes from the oil and gas company, the authorities said that Mr. Cuellar had promised to use his position as a lawmaker to influence U.S. policy toward Azerbaijan. In accepting payments from the Mexican bank, he agreed to try to steer legislative activity and pressure U.S. officials on issues beneficial to the bank, court documents said.
