President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he will pardon Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, unexpectedly ending the prosecution of a member of the opposite party.
Cuellar, one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, was charged last year with bribery, money laundering and conspiracy. Trump also pardoned Cuellar’s wife, Imelda, who also had been charged. He and his wife were scheduled to stand trial in April for the combined dozen charges. The 54-page indictment of Henry and Imelda Cuellar detailed a bold corruption scheme in which Cuellar allegedly promised to wield his power as a U.S. congressman to advocate for his benefactors.
Cuellar said in a statement after the indictment that he and his wife were innocent.
“Everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas,” the statement added.
In his post shared Wednesday morning on Truth Social, Trump baselessly accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the justice system against “anyone who disagreed with them” — including Cuellar.
“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,’” Trump wrote in his post.
While Cuellar is a Democrat, he repeatedly criticizedthe Biden administration’s immigration policies.
The investigation into Cuellar began in 2022, and federal authorities alleged that the congressman and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars for advancing the interests of an energy company controlled by the Azerbaijan government and a bank headquartered in Mexico.
While the investigation into Cuellar was independently run by the Justice Department, in his Wednesday post, Trump — who has often accused his opponents of weaponizing the justice system against him — said the investigation was “unAmerican” and he accused Democrats of being willing to “attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda.”
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