Last month, President Donald Trump issued pardons to both Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and his wife, Imelda. But now he's vowing to oust Cuellar from office and is endorsing his Republican opponent.
In a lengthy Tuesday post to his Truth Social account, Trump claimed that "nobody knows Henry Cuellar better than Donald J. Trump," and posted images of the letter Cuellar's daughters sent Trump asking him to pardon their parents. While the president called the letter "heart wrenching and beautiful," he observed that the Texas Democrat "had problems that nobody could solve but me, and the daughters very correctly and respectfully knew that."
The Cuellars were indicted in 2024 on federal charges of bribery, money laundering and acting as unregistered foreign agent. Former President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) accused them of accepting roughly $600,000 in bribes between 2014 and 2021 from an oil company registered in Azerbaijan and from a bank headquartered in Mexico City. The payments were described as "sham consulting contracts" and that the Cuellars were paid "through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts."
"In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan," the DOJ stated at the time. "In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. Executive Branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank."
Trump called Cuellar "a weak and incompetent version of me" and asserted he was only charged because he disagreed with the Biden administration on immigration policy. Trump credited Cuellar's daughters for convincing him to grant their parents a pardon, but said that Cuellar's decision to seek another term in office as a Democrat was the final straw.
"I never assumed he would be running for Office again, and certainly not as a Democrat, who essentially destroyed his life even with the Pardon given," Trump wrote in his signature style of oddly placed capital letters. "[B]ut he did, and now, despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM, I am fighting him for his seat in Congress because his views are not nearly as good or strong as Judge Tano Tijerina, who is much more powerful on the Border issue, cutting Taxes, our Military, and just about everything else than is Henry Cuellar."
Cuellar's pardon reportedly caught Texas Republicans off-guard, with the Texas Tribune reporting that some GOP officials were "extremely disappointed" at the news. After receiving his pardon, Cuellar expressed interest in helping Republicans pursue an investigation into the DOJ prosecutors who handled his case.