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Donald Trump Pardons Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar

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!”

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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.”

President Donald Trump pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) as he faced charges of bribery and acting as a foreign agent.

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.

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Cuellar represents a Texas district on the border with Mexico that swung hard towards Republicans over the past three election cycles. Democratic presidential candidates dominated the district up until 2020, when Joe Biden only won it by 7 percentage points. In 2024, Trump flipped the district, winning it by seven points.

Even in the face of the indictment and the shifting partisan terrain, Cuellar won reelection in 2024 by five points. This was the tightest election Cuellar faced since he first ran in 2004. That’s why Texas Republicans targeted his district in their mid-decade redistricting push. That new district would have voted for Trump by 11 points in 2024 ― just enough to overcome Cuellar’s margin.

But Trump has now handed Cuellar, who filed for reelection on Wednesday, a huge gift as he runs in an even more GOP-leaning district. Not only has he lifted the cloud of indictment from Cuellar’s head, but he also praised the Democratic congressman as a “beloved” lawmaker who stood up to his own party.