{"id":323067,"date":"2025-12-03T17:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323067\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T17:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:03:08","slug":"trump-says-hes-pardoning-texas-democratic-rep-henry-cuellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323067\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he\u2019s pardoning Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump<\/a> announced Wednesday he is issuing a \u201cfull and unconditional\u201d pardon to Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, using a lengthy social media post to accuse the Biden administration of targeting political opponents, even within its own party.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOne of the clearest examples of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to \u2018take out\u2019 a member of his own Party after Highly Respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border \u2018Catastrophe,\u2019\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHenry, I don\u2019t know you, but you can sleep well tonight \u2014 Your nightmare is finally over!\u201d Trump continued.\n <\/p>\n

\n Responding to the pardon on X, Cuellar thanked Trump<\/a> \u201cfor his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on,\u201d he wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2024, Cuellar and his wife were charged<\/a> with accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities in an alleged scheme that took place from late 2014 through at least November 2021, according to the indictment. Cuellar has denied any wrongdoing by him and his wife.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s Truth Social post announcing the pardon included images of a letter from the Cuellars\u2019 daughters last month asking the president for \u201ccompassion and clemency\u201d for their parents.\n <\/p>\n

\n Republicans had been eying Cuellar\u2019s Texas seat as they try to defend their majority in 2026. He\u2019s targeted by the new map Texas Republicans drew this year, which is currently in limbo awaiting a ruling from the US Supreme Court.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the congressman has been remarkably resilient, continuing to win in South Texas even as Republicans have made gains with Latino voters and the area has become less friendly to Democrats overall. In 2024, Cuellar won by 5.6 points, even as Trump won the district by 7.\n <\/p>\n

\n The new version of Cuellar\u2019s district would\u2019ve voted for Trump by more than 10 points. However, the new map also shifts some areas back into Cuellar\u2019s district that he had represented before the state\u2019s 2021 redistricting.\n <\/p>\n

\n In their November 12 letter to Trump, the Cuellars\u2019 daughters appealed to the president by referencing the congressman\u2019s breaks from his party and alluding to Trump\u2019s own past legal woes.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe 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,\u201d Christina and Catherine Cuellar wrote about their father.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen you and your family faced your own challenges, we understood that pain in a very human way. We watched from afar through the eyes of daughters and knew what it felt like to see parents under fire,\u201d they added.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Ethan Cohen contributed to this story.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional information.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he is issuing a \u201cfull and unconditional\u201d pardon to Texas Democratic Rep. Henry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-323067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}