Trump Pardons Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar
In May 2024, the Biden administration charged Cuellar and his wife for allegedly accepting $600,000 in bribes from a company owned by the Azerbaijan government and a bank in Mexico City.
President Donald Trump announced a pardon for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX).
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them. One of the clearest examples of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to “take out” a member of his own Party after Highly Respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border “Catastrophe.” Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH. It is unAmerican and, as I previously stated, the Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country. Because of these facts, and others, I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 3, 2025
Trump also shared a letter he received from Cuellar’s daughters.
In May 2024, the Biden administration charged Cuellar and his wife with allegedly accepting “at least $598,000 in bribes from two foreign entities: Foreign Oil Company-1, an oil and gas company wholly owned and controlled by the Government of Azerbaijan, and Foreign Bank-1, a bank headquartered in Mexico City.”
The move came months after the moderate Democrats warned Biden and his party that border security would become a top issue in the election.
Cuellar said following the pardon on Wednesday that, “I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts.”
“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,” he added. “This pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on. Thank you Mr. President, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.”
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Comments
Huh. I don’t see anything there about “He didn’t do it.” SMH
Every last one of them is dirty.
Pardons are granted irrespective of guilt or innocence; that’s kinda the whole point of giving the president that power.
Nothing The Donald does is done without purpose. While you can make the case that Trump pardoned Cuellar out if the goodness of his heart, you can also make the case that there’s an ulterior motive involved, one well only learn of later.
It could be something as simple as, “name the last time a Democrat president pardoned a Republican.”
It could be a signal to all the Mexican Americans in the Texas Valley who turned red this last election… MAGA has your back. They love Cuellar down there.
I think the President is sensitive to what he perceives as a selective prosecution of a Congressman to enforce political conformity. Such prosecutions have a chilling effect beyond mere guilt or innocence.
But justice is concerned with guilt or innocence.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Judges, outside the narrow scope of the “interests of justice,” primarily apply the law in a criminal trial. Fact-finders—whether a jury or a judge in a bench trial—assess whether guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt. If the standard is not met, the verdict is not guilty.
The pardon power, vested in the Executive, exists to preserve justice beyond the limitations of a criminal trial. It allows the Executive to mitigate or forgive legal consequences in cases where strict application of the law may not achieve fairness, to show mercy, or to address circumstances that a court may not fully consider. In this sense, the pardon power functions as a safety valve for justice, ensuring the system retains flexibility to account for extraordinary circumstances, humanitarian concerns, or evolving social norms. Selective prosecution implicates the fairness of justice in some instances.
Indeed justice is concerned only with actual guilt or innocence. The president’s power of clemency is above that. He can use it based on the big picture, taking into account considerations that have no place in a court of law.
I think this is exactly it. Trump must be reasoning that regardless of whether Cuellar is actually guilty, he would never have been prosecuted had he toed the Democrat Party line. His prosecution was motivated by politics, and Trump hates that since he was the victim of it.
Extremely astute comment.
And I think probably totally accurate.
Henry Cuellar is loved in South Texas. I’m confident he’ll campaign in a way favorable to Republicans, perhaps even in other states.
Trump should give preemptive pardons to everybody involved in shooting Venezuela drug boats to prevent prosecution by Democrats at a later date. Do it with an autopen in the oval office.
Might as well have the autopen sign Biden’s name too. It’s not as if the democrats would care.
He can’t pardon future acts. So the time to issue such pardons would be before leaving office.
Hundreds of Biden’s autopen’s pardons covered future acts.
Every D in the country thinks that’s constitutional, and that likely goes for all of the D appointed “judges” as well.
Of course, if Trump were to do the same thing, they would all hold precisely the opposite position.
Especially the D appointed “judges”.
Bullshit. None of them did, because none of them could.
No Dem has ever claimed that that would be constitutional. What the hell are you talking about? Where are you getting this bizarre misinformation?
Yes, Ds “think that” until it’s an R.
Again, what are you talking about? Pardons by definition can only apply to crimes that already exist.
Democrats are crying out about war crimes having been committed by a second strike. I am referring to the president issuing a preemptive pardon for that.
Oh, OK. that’s a past act, so he can pardon it before he leaves office.
Just to note – Biden could have pardoned him and didn’t. Instead, he pardoned everyone but Henry Cuellar.
That’s a nice spin on it as well – the Dems will stab you in the back, first chance they get. They only protect their “friends”.
Why would Biden have even wanted to pardon him? He pardoned people he thought Trump might prosecute. He was prosecuting Cuellar, quite possibly for good reasons, so why would he pardon him?