Amidst the ongoing unrest on college campuses, the crisis in the Middle East, and the circus that is Trump’s Stormy Daniels trial, the lamestream media has all but ignored the indictment of Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar from Texas.
Cueller was indicted on May 12 by the Department of Justice in Houston. He says he is not guilty of the charges and will stand for reelection as planned this fall.
A relatively conservative Democrat who represents a district that stretches along the U.S.–Mexico border around Laredo and pokes up to San Antonio, Cueller is charged with 14 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and so forth related to allegations that he was paid under the table to influence U.S. policy on behalf of Azerbaijan’s national oil company, SOCAR, and the Mexican bank Banco Azteca.
The indictment of Cueller could derail the Democrat’s hope of retaking the House in November. Before his legal troubles, Cueller easily won reelection in his district, the 28th. However, since then, and with the ongoing border crisis, the district has become more Republican. The Cook Political Report rates it as having a Democratic “lean” of 3 points—which, roughly speaking, means a generic Democrat would be expected to beat a generic Republican in the district by only a 3-point margin. That’s close enough to mean that Cuellar’s indictment and potential conviction could threaten Dems’ efforts to retake the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently hold by a tenuous four votes.
Cuellar’s wife Imelda was also indicted, which smacks of another recent democrat scandal – the case of New Jersey’s Senator Robert Menendez, whose wife and himself are facing bribery charges.
The Dems are now having to deal with two members of Congress who are in high-stakes races that they are refusing to drop out of despite facing corruption indictments.
All tolled Cuellar and his wife each face two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery of a federal official and to have a public official act as an agent of a foreign principal, two counts of bribery of a federal official, two counts of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, two counts of violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principal, one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, and five counts of money laundering.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that Cuellar “is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process.”