The US justice department on Friday accused the Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, of accepting about $600,000 in bribes in exchange for influencing policy in favor of Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank.
The Cuellars had made their first appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Houston by the afternoon, but it was not clear how they pleaded. Earlier, the congressman, who has represented a swath of Texas’s border with Mexico in the US House since 2005, issued a statement denying unspecified “allegations” against him.
“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations. Everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas,” Cuellar said.
He added that “I’m running for re-election and will win this November,” when Democrats are hoping to regain the majority in the House of Representatives.
The justice department said that between December 2014 and November 2021, the Cuellars received bribes from an unspecified bank headquartered in Mexico City as well as an oil and gas company controlled by the government of Azerbaijan.
Imelda Cuellar then allegedly used “sham consulting contracts”, front companies and intermediaries to launder the money.
In return, the congressman influenced US foreign policy to Azerbaijan’s advantage and pressured unnamed “high-ranking” officials in the executive branch to take actions in favor of the bank.
A statement from the House Democratic minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said that under the party’s rules in the chamber, Cuellar would step down as the ranking member of a homeland security subcommittee while he faces these charges.
Jeffries added that Cuellar “admirably devoted his career to public service … is a valued member of the House Democratic caucus” and was “entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process”.
Two years ago, the FBI raided Cuellar’s Laredo, Texas, home and campaign office as part of an investigation into US businessmen and their links with Azerbaijan. Cuellar said he was cooperating with their inquiry, and months later, an attorney for the lawmaker told Fox News that he was not a target of the investigation that led to the raid.
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In his statement on Friday, the congressman said that “before I took any action, I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm. The actions I took in Congress were consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues and in the interest of the American people.”
Cuellar added that he had requested to meet with “the Washington DC prosecutors to explain the facts and they refused to discuss the case with us or to hear our side”.
Federal charges could complicate the re-election of 68-year-old Cuellar, who is seeking an 11th term in office. A moderate Democrat, he supported a bipartisan Senate bill that would have tightened immigration policy, and is the party’s sole House lawmaker opposed to passing federal legislation to guarantee abortion access.
After the 2022 raid on his home and office, Cuellar narrowly won the Democratic primary against his progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, then easily beat the Republican Cassy Garcia in the general election.