President Donald Trump lashed out at Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) after the lawmaker announced he was seeking reelection as a Democrat.
The president pardoned Cuellar last week as he and his wife faced charges related to bribery. In a post on Truth Social, Trump pointed out how Democrats weaponized the criminal justice system under former President Joe Biden to attack political opponents.
Cuellar was a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s border policies.
“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,” Trump wrote. “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. The Dems were vicious, and all because Henry strongly wanted, correctly, BORDER SECURITY!”
The president characterized the prosecution efforts as “very unfair,” and explained that he decided to pardon the lawmaker after his family wrote him a “beautiful letter” asking for clemency.
“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! I signed the papers, and said to people in the Oval Office that I just did a very good, perhaps life saving, thing,” Trump wrote.
The president added, “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!”
Trump’s post came after Cuellar announced that he was running for reelection on Wednesday. He told reporters that he wanted “to thank President Trump for this” and that “nothing has changed, and we’re going to be ready to win re-election again,” according to Politico.
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Cuellar also assured his party that he is still “a good old conservative Democrat.”
Prosecutors alleged that the lawmaker accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for using his influence to assist an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank in policy matters. He criticized the Biden administration’s failure to handle the border crisis that began shortly after Biden took office on multiple occasions, earning the ire of many within his party.
Cuellar, whose district is located in southern Texas, often highlighted how the crisis affected his constituents residing near the border. Cuellar has not yet responded to Trump’s criticism. But it appears likely that one reason he chose to remain with the party was to avoid the appearance of a quid pro quo between himself and the Trump administration.
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