President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he would pardon Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and his wife, Imelda, who were indicted in 2024 on charges of bribery, unlawful foreign influence and money laundering.
Cuellar’s home in Laredo was raided by the FBI in 2022 after he allegedly accepted almost $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani oil and gas company and a Mexican bank.
“Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!” Trump wrote in his announcement of the pardon on Truth Social.
Cuellar, who filed for re-election the same day, posted on X to thank Trump “for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts,” adding that “this pardon gives us a clean slate.”
He told reporters that he does not plan on changing political parties because of the pardon, saying, “Nothing has changed. I’m a conservative Democrat, I’m very bipartisan.”
The president has been exercising his pardon power aggressively in recent weeks. Other recipients include former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in connection with trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine, and one of Trump’s personal attorneys, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was accused of helping him try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
This pardon, however, is a little different, as Cuellar is a Democrat (albeit a conservative one) who voted to impeach Trump in both 2019 and 2021. In a lengthy post on his social media platform, Trump accused former President Joe Biden of trying to persecute a member of his own party for disagreeing with him on issues like the U.S.-Mexico border, which constitutes the southern edge of Cuellar’s district.
Trump also shared a letter written to him by Cuellar’s two daughters asking for “compassion and clemency” for their parents. In the letter, they wrote that their father had tried to protect the people of South Texas and secure “the border from the policies of the previous administration.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.