{"id":328298,"date":"2025-12-03T16:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328298\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:25:07","slug":"trump-pardons-texas-democratic-rep-henry-cuellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/328298\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case<\/a> on Wednesday, citing what he called a \u201cweaponized\u201d justice system.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch hunt, said on social media without presenting evidence that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the congressman had been critical of President Joe Biden\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post that Cuellar \u201cbravely spoke out against Open Borders\u201d and accused Biden, a Democrat, of going after the congressman and his wife \u201csimply for speaking the TRUTH.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal authorities had charged Cuellar<\/a> and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar is accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent. The couple\u2019s trial had been set to begin next April.<\/p>\n

\u201cHenry, I don\u2019t know you, but you can sleep well tonight,\u201d Trump wrote in his social media post announcing the pardon. \u201cYour nightmare is finally over!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuellar, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years, is a moderate Democrat who represents an area on the Texas-Mexico border and has a history of breaking with his party when it comes to immigration and firearms.<\/p>\n

He was among the most vocal critics of the Biden administration\u2019s response to a record number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He also is one of the last Democrats in Congress who opposes abortion rights.<\/p>\n

Cuellar is not the only Democrat Trump has pardoned this year. In February, he pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich<\/a>, five years after he had commuted his sentence in a political corruption case.<\/p>\n

Like in Cuellar\u2019s case, Trump suggested that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, faced federal corruption charges because he made comments critical of Biden\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Trump did not pardon Adams, but after Trump took office, the Justice Department moved to drop the case<\/a> against the mayor, who had begun working with the Republican administration on immigration issues.<\/p>\n

A top Justice Department official, who was also Trump\u2019s defense lawyer in several of his cases, stepped in to seek dismissal in the case.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story has deleted an incorrect reference to Cuellar\u2019s age; he\u2019s 70, not 69.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,6794,22047,14271,37948,12,10767,793,962,21280,5629,166842,790,3319,3140,63064,2221,152186,26,3,129503,111,166841,1022,1059,8638,10585,21,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-328298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-azerbaijan","tag-bribery","tag-central-america","tag-corruption","tag-donald-trump","tag-eric-adams","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-henry-cuellar","tag-illinois","tag-imelda-cuellar","tag-immigration","tag-joe-biden","tag-latin-america","tag-law-and-order","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-mexico","tag-news","tag-pardons-and-commutations","tag-politics","tag-rod-blagojevich","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}