President Trump to Pardon Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar

By Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump announced he will pardon U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and his wife, ending the congressman's multi-year federal legal battle. Cuellar had faced a dozen charges of bribery, money laundering and conspiracy.

In Trump’s pardon, shared Wednesday morning via Truth Social, the president said that the Democratic congressman had been punished by a weaponized Department of Justice under former president Joe Biden for speaking out against the administration’s border policy.

“Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH,” Trump wrote. 

Cuellar also on Wednesday filed for reelection as a Democrat, quieting speculation that he planned to switch parties.

Cuellar’s legal controversy began in 2022, during the Biden administration, when the FBI raided his home and office as part of a federal probe investigating the diplomatic practices of Azerbaijan. Cuellar and his wife were indicted by the Department of Justice in 2024 on 12 counts of bribery, conspiracy and money laundering centered on the congressman’s alleged acceptance of nearly $600,000 in bribes from the Central Asian county and a Mexican commercial bank. The indictment alleged that the money was laundered through shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, and that the congressman subsequently pushed policy benefitting Azerbaijani interests. 

Cuellar’s trial was set to begin in September, but a federal judge had moved the date to April — after the March primary but before what is set to be a competitive general election. Throughout his legal ordeal, he has maintained that he is innocent.

With Trump’s pardon, Cuellar will no longer face any legal ramifications related to the bribery case.

“I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts,” Cuellar said in a statement on X. “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.

“This pardon gives us a clean slate,” he continued. “The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on. Thank you Mr. President, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”

Trump said the pardon would also apply to Imelda Cuellar. In his post, Trump attached a Nov. 12 letter to him from Cuellar’s daughters requesting clemency for their parents and suggesting that their dad’s "independence and honesty” on border policy “may have contributed to how this case began.”

“President Trump, you once publicly said that you believed the indictment was wrong — and later, at a White House picnic, you told me personally, as you pointed to my father, that he was a ‘good man’,” Catherine and Christina Cuellar wrote in their letter. “Those words meant more than you could ever know.”

Trump echoed the Cuellar daughters’ belief about Cuellar’s border stance in his post.

“For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them,” Trump wrote. “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.”