President Trump pardons U.S. Rep. Cuellar
The unexpected news that U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) won a presidential pardon last Wednesday apparently had some strings attached.
The president figured that Cuellar would switch political parties and run in next year’s primary as a Republican representing Texas’s 28th District.
Nothing, though, could be further from the truth as it turned out.
In fact, the same day that Cuellar received the presidential pardon, Dec. 1, old Henry turned right around and filed to run for reelection. As a Democrat.
That lit a fuse inside the White House, and President Donald Trump went straight to his social media platform — Truth Social — where he wrote this about the man he had just pardoned and the party with which he is affiliated:
“Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be ‘running’ for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas (a State where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical Left Scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in Prison - And probably still do!” The president finished his post with these words of warning to the 11-term congressman: “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like. Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”
Trial Goes Away
When Trump pardoned Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, that put an end to the federal bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy case facing them. The couple’s trial was scheduled to begin in April 2026.
Cuellar and his wife were indicted in 2024 on over a dozen corruption charges, accused of accepting approximately $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan- controlled energy company and a Mexican bank in exchange for political favors. The couple denied all charges, maintaining their innocence.
The case, however, had already ensnared two of Cuellar’s political advisers, who pled guilty to conspiring with Cuellar to launder over $200,000 in bribes from a Mexican bank. (Source: TexasTribune.org.)
Although he twice voted to impeach Donald Trump during his first term, December of 2019 and January 2021, Cuellar did stand with the president when it came to the issue of border security, which ticked off the progressives now leading the party.
Still, with a rock solid voting block working out of the district base of Laredo, with his politicos covering all of the 28th district of Texas, which stretches north toward San Antonio and east until it encompasses all of Starr County and a portion of Hidalgo County, Cuellar has retained office since he was first elected to it in November 2004.
Seldom does he draw a Democrat opponent in the primary. This year, though, Cuellar has got a likely tough Republican opponent in the form of the Webb County judge who has a catchy name that voters can remember -- Tano Tijerina, who has said publicly that he’s anxious to flip a key battleground district red.
The Webb County judge first won public office as a Democrat in 2014, but switched to the GOP a year ago, claiming that the Democrat Party no longer aligned with his values. (Source: Texas-Tribune.org.)
Meanwhile, Cuellar, the only anti- abortion Democrat still in Congress, said last week that he will remain a staunch Democrat but is a “conservative Democrat.”
Trump’s Not Happy
With the federal criminal case now no longer hanging over his head, Henry Cuellar can devote his full-time attention to winning the general election next November, coming off the closest race of his public career in November 2024, 53 percent to 47 percent, when Trump and the GOP carried more of the border area than during any previous years.
Now, though, Cuellar has a supercharged president who is not only unhappy with Henry, but basically wrote in his Truth Social post last week that the congressman had ruined his day. A day during which even “God” had been happy with his (Trump) performance.
From the president’s remarks regarding Cuellar: “Can you imagine??? The Democrats, under the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, who always use extreme force and jail-time to destroy their political opponent, wanted to put Congressman Henry Cuellar, and his wife, Imelda, in PRISON, for 15 years, which I predicted these Radical Left Lunatics would do - And they never stopped wanting to fulfill this evil quest!”
The Democrats are merciless, wrote the president: “The Dems mercilessly went after Henry with everything they had! They were looking to destroy him, his lovely wife, his two young daughters, and anyone close to them. When the Democrats overwhelmingly lost the 2024 Presidential Election, and power with it, they, regardless, did everything they could to keep going after the Cuellar family.”
And apparently, they weren’t even gentle about it: “The Dems were vicious, and all because Henry strongly wanted, correctly, BORDER SECURITY! He was against illegals pouring into our Country, totally unchecked and unvetted.”
Plus, according to the president, Henry Cuellar wasn’t a fan of gangbangers: “The Congressman didn’t want gang members, drug dealers, violent prisoners, people from mental institutions and yes, even murderers, in the good ol’USA.”
The Biden assault on Cuellar’s family was beyond the pale, wrote the president on Truth Social: “It was all very unfair what they were doing to him and his family, so much so that his daughters wrote me a beautiful letter about their parents (Just posted on TRUTH!). After reading it I decided, in the interest of justice, and based on the daughter’s loving request, that I would give Henry and Imelda a Full and Complete Pardon.”
But the president never spoke to the Cuellar family: “I never spoke to the Congressman, his wife, or his daughters, but felt very good about fighting for a family that was tormented by very sick and deranged people They were treated sooo BADLY!”
That, however, is not how the president’s day ended, which had had a divine element to it, wrote Trump: “I signed the papers (the pardon) and said to people in the Oval Office that I just did a very good, perhaps life saving, thing. God was very happy with me that day! THEN IT HAPPENED!!!
“What happened?” Cuellar didn’t flip to the Republican side but filed to run again as a Democrat, which prompted the president to write: “Oh’ well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy.”
What next time?