WASHINGTON (CN) — The Department of Justice on Friday indicted Texas Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife on charges that they accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from foreign countries.
According to the indictment, first reported by NBC, the Democratic lawmaker from the Lone Star State's 28th Congressional District allegedly took a total of roughly $600,000 from an oil company owned by the government of Azerbaijan and a bank headquartered in Mexico City.
The Justice Department also accused Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, of laundering the money through sham consulting contracts. In exchange for the bribes, authorities say, the lawmaker "agreed to perform official acts in his capacity as a Member of Congress" and to act as an agent of the Azerbaijani government.
Cuellar, who once served as co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Conference, agreed to influence legislative efforts related to Azerbaijan's conflict with Armenia and to make pro-Azerbaijan statement on the House floor, among other things.
Further, the indictment states, the Texas Democrat agreed to influence U.S. money laundering enforcement practices and other policies that threatened the business interests of the Mexican bank which allegedly paid him off.
Cuellar, who was reelected in 2022, became the subject of federal scrutiny that same year as the FBI raided his Laredo, Texas, home to investigate the lawmaker’s ties to Kemal Oksuz, a former Houston businessman. The lawmaker was subpoenaed in 2018 as part of a Justice Department probe into Oksuz, who pleaded guilty to helping conceal the fact that Azerbaijan’s state oil company footed the bill for a 2013 congressional trip to the Cacusus nation.
A spokesperson for Cuellar did not immediately comment, but the lawmaker denied any wrongdoing in a statement to NBC. “Everything I have done in Congress is to serve the people of South Texas,” he said, adding that he had sought legal advice on the matter from the House Committee on Ethics.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement Friday that Cuellar is "entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process."
"Henry Cuellar has admirably devoted his career to public service and is a valued member of the House Democratic Caucus," he wrote.
But the Texas Democrat will step aside from his role as ranking member of the House Committee on Appropriations homeland security subpanel while the investigation continues, Jeffries added.
Despite the probe into his business ties, Cuellar clinched the Democratic nomination for Texas’s 28th Congressional District in summer 2022, barely beating progressive rival Jessica Cisneros.
The lawmaker, who has been in Congress since 2005, secured endorsements from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.
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