{"id":42302,"date":"2024-05-03T19:11:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T19:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/03\/henry-cuellar-indicted-over-bribery-scheme\/"},"modified":"2024-05-03T19:11:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T19:11:04","slug":"henry-cuellar-indicted-over-bribery-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/03\/henry-cuellar-indicted-over-bribery-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Cuellar Indicted Over Bribery Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/03\/multimedia\/03dc-cuellar-wkgh\/03dc-cuellar-wkgh-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Henry Cuellar Indicted Over Bribery Scheme\" title=\"Henry Cuellar Indicted Over Bribery Scheme\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, and his wife were charged with participating in a yearslong $600,000 bribery scheme involving Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Houston on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Cuellar, 68, and his wife Imelda, 67, are accused of bribery and money laundering in connection with their efforts on behalf of a bank based in Mexico City and an energy company owned by Azerbaijan, according to the 54-page complaint.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Cuellar is also accused of acting as an agent of a foreign entity while serving as a U.S. government official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Payments made from 2014 to 2021 were laundered through \u201csham consulting contracts,\u201d front companies and shell companies owned by Mrs. Cuellar, who performed \u201clittle to no legitimate work\u201d under the contracts, lawyers with the Justice Department\u2019s criminal division wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Cuellar \u201cagreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank,\u201d prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Cuellar is one of the more conservative Democrats in the House and the only anti-abortion member of his party in the chamber. The charges are similar to the indictment brought against Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, who was charged with accepting bribes on behalf of Egyptian businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement before the indictment, Mr. Cuellar maintained his innocence and said he cleared his wife\u2019s work with the Ethics Committee. He vowed to run and win re-election despite the charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations,\u201d Mr. Cuellar said. \u201cEverything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBefore I took any action,\u201d he added, \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Cuellar said he tried to meet with federal prosecutors in Washington to explain his side of the story, but they declined the meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The F.B.I. searched Mr. Cuellar\u2019s Laredo home in 2022, but he won a close primary victory anyway over a more progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, said Mr. Cuellar would take leave from his post as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee while he fights the charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">\u201c<\/em>Henry Cuellar has admirably devoted his career to public service and is a valued member of the House Democratic Caucus,\u201d said Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Jeffries. <em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">\u201c<\/em>Like any American, Congressman Cuellar is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/03\/us\/politics\/henry-cuellar-indictment.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, and his wife were charged with participating in a yearslong $600,000 bribery scheme involving Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank, according to a federal indictment unsealed in Houston on Friday. Mr. Cuellar, 68, and his wife Imelda, 67, are accused of bribery and money laundering in connection with their efforts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/03\/multimedia\/03dc-cuellar-wkgh\/03dc-cuellar-wkgh-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28866,43801,5404,43802,8940],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42304,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42302\/revisions\/42304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}