President Trump said Wednesday he has pardoned Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife Imelda, ending the government’s prosecution of them on federal bribery and conspiracy charges and saying they were victims of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the justice system.
Mr. Trump said on social media that Mr. Cuellar is an example of former President Biden prosecuting his political opponents and people who disagreed with him.
“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,’” Mr. Trump wrote.
Mr. Cuellar thanked the president for his “tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts.”
“This pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on,” he wrote on X.
The Cuellars were scheduled to stand trial in April on charges of money laundering, bribery and other charges stemming from a federal investigation that began in 2022. They were charged with accepting nearly $600,000 in exchange for advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico.
The federal indictment said the alleged scheme went from 2014 to 2021. Mr. Cuellar won reelection in 2024.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Biden went after the congressman and his wife “simply for speaking the TRUTH.”
“It is unAmerican and, as I previously stated, the Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country,” he said.
He concluded his message: “Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
The president shared a letter from Cuellar’s daughters, Christina and Catherine Cuellar, that was sent to him last month requesting “compassion and clemency” for their parents.
“We write to you simply as two daughters — two women who love their parents more than words can express and who have spent countless nights praying for strength, hope, and understanding,” they wrote on Nov. 12.
“With all our hearts, we humbly ask that you show mercy and compassion to our parents — either by dismissing this case or granting a full and unconditional pardon,” the daughters said.
Mr. Cuellar and his wife have said they are innocent. The trial was set to begin in April.
The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously in May 2024 to open an investigation into Mr. Cuellar while the Justice Department had an ongoing probe.
The Justice Department accused the couple of accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from 2014 to 2021.
Mr. Cuellar, who represents a district on the Texas-Mexico border, has served in Congress for over 20 years. He was one of the most vocal critics of the Biden administration’s response to the influx of migrants coming over the southern border.
He has joined a growing list of people who have received pardons from Mr. Trump.
He is not the first Democrat to be pardoned — former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was pardoned in February. The president also recently pardoned Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez of a drug trafficking conviction.
He pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October, former New York Republican Rep. George Santos, and former Mets star Darryl Strawberry, among others.
