WASHINGTON – The Justice Department on Friday released an indictment against former representative. Henry CuellarTexas, D-Texas, and his wife Imelda accuse the pair of bribery and money laundering in connection with their ties to a bank in Mexico and an Azerbaijani-controlled oil and gas company.
NBC News was the first to report that the indictment was coming. The congressman and his wife were each released on $100,000 bond after an initial appearance in federal court in Houston, a DOJ spokesperson said Friday afternoon.
According to the indictment, the Cuellars allegedly accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from the two foreign entities between 2014 and 2021 in exchange for the congressman performing official acts.
“The bribes were allegedly laundered, under sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen to shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar, which performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts,” the DOJ said in a statement.
“In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan,” DOJ continued. “In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and advise and pressure senior U.S. executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the Bank.’
The congressman and his wife are each charged with two counts of conspiring to bribe a federal official and cause a government official to act as an agent of a foreign principal; two counts of bribery of a federal official; two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; two counts of violating the ban on government officials acting as agents of a foreign client; one count of conspiracy to commit covert money laundering; and five counts of money laundering.
If convicted, they could spend years or even decades in prison.
In a statement Friday before the indictment was unsealed, Cuellar denied any wrongdoing and said he had “proactively sought legal advice” from the House Ethics Committee, which had issued “more than one written opinion” on the matter. Much of his statement was directed at his wife.
“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these charges. Everything I did in Congress was to serve the people of South Texas,” Cuellar said in his statement, later adding: “The actions I took in Congress were consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues and in the interests of the Americans. people.”
“Imelda and I have been married for 32 years. She is not only a wonderful wife and mother, but also an experienced businesswoman with two degrees. She spent her career in the banking, tax and consulting industries, he continued. “The claim that she is anything but qualified and hardworking is both wrong and insulting.”
A defiant Cuellar also made it clear that he will still seek re-election: “Let me be clear, I am running for re-election and will win in November.”
A statement from the congressman’s lawyers was similar to Cuellar’s, but also noted that prosecutors charged him just six months before Election Day.
“The government’s decision to proceed with charges so close to the general election – and their decision to execute a search warrant 40 days before his election [2022] primary – undermines the electorate and puts a thumb on the scale,” said attorneys Chris Flood and Eric Reed.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and other top Democratic leaders had supported Cuellar’s reelection bid last summer. In a statement, Jeffries spokesperson Christie Stephenson called Cuellar a “valued member of the House Democratic Caucus,” noting that Cuellar “is entitled to his day in court and to the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process.”
In the meantime, Cuellar will relinquish his position as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, Stephenson said.
Cuellar’s home and campaign office in Laredo, Texas, were raided in January 2022 as part of a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and a group of American businessmen with ties to the country, police said at the time. His office had promised to cooperate with the investigation. In April, Cuellar’s attorney, Joshua Berman, told some news outlets that federal authorities had informed him that he was not the target of the investigation.
Cuellar is a one-time co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. According to the indictment, in exchange for the bribes, Cuellar promised to influence legislation related to Azerbaijan’s conflict with neighboring Armenia; the inclusion of pro-Azerbaijani language in legislation and committee reports on security and economic aid programs; delivering a pro-Azerbaijani speech in the House of Representatives; and “consultations” with Azerbaijani officials about their efforts to lobby the U.S. government.
Before the release of the indictment, Cuellar’s staff called other member offices on Friday to ask for advice on how to handle the situation, a source with knowledge of those calls told NBC News.
A year after the raid on his home — which has led to no previous arrests or charges — Cuellar told the Texas Tribune: “There has been no wrongdoing on my part. … My focus remains the same from my very first day on the job: delivering results for Texans across my district.”
Despite the raid, Cuellar narrowly defeated a progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, in his 2022 primary and won re-election to his seat in November. He did not face a primary challenger this year and will be on the ballot in November for his 11th term in Congress.
Two years ago, Cuellar easily defeated Republican candidate Cassy Garcia, 57% to 43%. His district turned bluer when he picked up parts of San Antonio after redistricting. But the charges will leave Cuellar more vulnerable than in the past; in 2020, Joe Biden won Donald Trump’s Cuellar district by 7 percentage points.
Two Republicans will face each other in the runoff election at the end of May, giving them a chance to face Cuellar in the fall.
“Henry Cuellar isn’t putting Texas first, he’s putting himself first,” said Delanie Bomar, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “If his colleagues truly believe in putting ‘people above politics’, they will call on him to resign. If not, they are hypocrites whose statements about public service are not worth the paper they are written on.”
Cuellar is facing a call to resign from a member of his own party, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who said in a post on X On Friday evening, he said that “while the bar for federal charges is high, trust in our government is low.”
“That is why officeholders and candidates facing charges must resign or end their campaigns, including Senator Bob Menendez, Donald Trump and Representative Henry Cuellar,” continued Phillips, who was among the first to call on Menendez to resign .
Cuellar, 66, an attorney, is a former customs broker and secretary of state of Texas. Cuellar, a member of the centrist Blue Dogs and New Democrat Coalition, was elected to the House of Representatives in 2004.
He is the only remaining Democrat in Congress who opposes abortion rights — a position that has angered many in his party.
The Cuellars are the second congressional couple to be charged in a foreign bribery scheme in the past year. In September, DOJ charged then-Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and his wife after they allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, including gold bars, in exchange for official acts aimed at enriching three businessmen from New Jersey and favoring the Egyptian government. Both Cuellar and Menendez are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Menendez, who stepped down from heading Foreign Relations, has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled to begin later this month.
A third lawmaker, New York Republican George Santos, was expelled from the House of Representatives in December after a damning ethics report and a 23-count federal indictment accusing him of crimes including bank fraud and money laundering. Santos has also pleaded not guilty.
CORRECTION (May 3, 2024, 4:59 PM ET): Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misattributed a statement. It was from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries’ spokesman, Christie Stephenson, and not Jeffries himself.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
