President Trump said on Wednesday that he would pardon 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. Cueller 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 is another blow to the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which has been decimated 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.
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.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has aggressively wielded his pardon power to absolve allies and argue that criminal cases pursued by Democratic administrations, and even his first administration, were somehow corrupt themselves.
Mr. Trump has now issued more than 2,000 pardons and commutations, most of them to people arrested in connection with the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
This week, Mr. Trump formally pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was convicted of using his position to help smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Mr. Trump tied that pardon to a close presidential election contest in the country, saying he hoped his move would help his preferred candidate win.
Mr. Hernández was convicted at trial last March, and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the president commuted the sentence of David Gentile, a private equity executive, just weeks after he began serving a seven-year prison sentence for wire fraud and securities fraud.
Mr. Gentile, who helped found GPB Capital, was convicted in August 2024 of a scheme to defraud more than 10,000 investors in funds that raised about $1.6 billion.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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