President Donald Trump said he will issue a preemptive pardon for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) on Wednesday, effectively voiding Cuellar’s 2024 indictment for bribery.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced a “full and complete PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar” and his wife, Imelda Cuellar. Trump claimed that Cuellar’s indictment stemmed from the Biden administration, which “weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them.” In Cuellar’s case, Trump claimed that the congressman was targeted because he “bravely spoke out against Open Borders,” before adding, “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
Cuellar, an 11-term congressman from South Texas, and his wife were indicted by the Department of Justice in May 2024 for allegedly accepting $600,000 from an Azerbaijani state-owned oil company and a Mexican bank in exchange for his help to sway U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan and legislative acts to support the Mexican bank. The indictment charged Cuellar and his wife with illegally accepting bribes and acting as unregistered foreign agents. Cuellar and his wife have denied all wrongdoing.
“I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts,” Cuellar said in a post 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.”
Trump’s preemptive pardon for Cuellar comes after he instigated months of conflict within the Justice Department over the case against the congressman. After inheriting the case from the Biden administration, Trump sought to kill it as he saw Cuellar, a conservative Democrat, as an ally on border enforcement. Justice Department leadership ultimately decided to go forward with the case but dropped charges brought under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as Trump suspended prosecutions under that law when he took office.
But Trump’s intervention now kills the case entirely. It comes at a particularly odd time for Republicans. Cuellar’s district was one of five House seats substantially altered by Texas Republicans to include more GOP voters when they did mid-decade redistricting at Trump’s behest in August. And a leading GOP recruit, Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina, jumped into the race against Cuellar on Tuesday.