President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that he would be giving a “full and unconditional” pardon to Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, in a federal bribery and conspiracy case.
Rep. Cuellar, a conservative Democrat who has served in the House since 2005, and his wife were charged by federal authorities last year with bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged in the indictment that the couple accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities—an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan, and a bank headquartered in Mexico City—in a scheme that took place from 2014 to late 2021.
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Henry and Imelda Cuellar “agreed to perform official acts in his capacity as a Member of Congress, to commit acts in violation of his official duties, and to act as an agent of the Government of Azerbaijan” in exchange for the bribes, the indictment alleged. The couple has denied wrongdoing.
“For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in his announcement of the Cuellars’ pardon. “One of the clearest examples 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.’”
Cuellar thanked Trump in a post on X.
“This pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on,” Cuellar wrote.
Trump’s post also included images of a letter from Cuellar’s daughters, Christine and Catherine, sent last month. The letter stated that “our parents are good, decent people who have spent their lives giving more than they’ve taken,” and asked the President to show “mercy and compassion” for their parents.
The Cuellars’ daughters also referenced their father’s support of a secure border and immigration enforcement, something Trump tipped his hat to in his announcement of the pardon.
“He has never been afraid to speak his mind, especially when it comes to protecting the people of South Texas and securing the border from the policies of the previous administration,” they wrote.
Cuellar—who represents a district in South Texas that borders the Rio Grande, which many migrants cross to enter the country—criticized Biden’s border policies on multiple occasions.
“They have to show that they can stop some of the flow coming in, because if we look at the root problems, corruption, crime and all that, that’s going to take years. But we have to show a way that we can slow down the number of people coming in from Central America,” he said in 2021 about the Biden Administration. “If we don’t do this … I can tell you that the areas that I represent, the border communities, they’re frustrated. I’m telling you, they are frustrated.”
The following year he knocked the Administration over its decision to end Title 42, a health emergency policy started during the Trump Administration under which the government could expel migrants without giving them a chance to file asylum claims.
“You look at the polls. The Republican voters are not happy by what’s happening at the border. The Democratic voters are not happy. And if you look at the independent voters, they’re not happy about this decision. So who are we trying to please?” he told Fox News Digital in an interview at the time.
Cuellar also supported Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to bus thousands of migrants to major U.S. cities during the Biden Administration, saying Abbott “played this very well politically.”
“Usually when people talk about border security, it’s usually coming from people that are not from the border. But when migrants started going to New York and Chicago, that’s when other people started feeling what we’ve been feeling for a long time. It became real to them.”
Cuellar authored a border security bill in 2021 with Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to boost funding for the Department of Homeland Security, but the measure failed to win support.
The Texas Democrat, the ranking member of the House’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, has also opposed Trump’s proposed border wall, however. Cuellar opposed the construction of the wall while proposing “more effective alternatives, such as modernizing land ports of entry and our security infrastructure, bolstering U.S. Border Patrol vehicles and checkpoints, and increasing border patrol agent salaries to reduce attrition,” his platform on border and homeland security states.
“Border walls are a 14th-century solution to 21st-century problems,” Cuellar posted last month.
Cuellar told reporters that he “didn’t know that this was coming” and said “no” when asked if any deal had been cut with the White House.
The Cook Political Report currently rates the race for Cuellar’s seat as one of the most competitive in 2026. The congressman filed to run for reelection as a Democrat on Wednesday. Asked if he would change parties following the pardon, he said no.
“Like I said, nothing has changed,” he told reporters.
The post Who Is Henry Cuellar, the Democratic Congressman Trump Is Pardoning? appeared first on TIME.
