Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump On Tuesday, he endorsed Republican challenger Tano Tijerina against Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, just weeks after pardoning the longtime Democrat in a corruption case Trump said was motivated by Biden-era political retaliation.
Trump pardoned Cuellar in December after the Justice Department under the Biden administration indicted him and his wife for allegedly receiving about $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani-owned energy company and a Mexican bank.
“No one knows Henry Cuellar better than Donald J. Trump,” Trump wrote in a fiery Truth Social article Tuesday afternoon. “I studied his files, I discovered its financingand I listened to her two wonderful daughters beg me to help the mother and father they love.”
Trump described letters from Cuellar’s daughters as “heartbreaking and beautiful”, emphasizing that only he could “solve” their father’s “problems”.
TRUMP FORGIVED DEM HOUSE REVEALS IF HE WILL CHANGE POLITICAL PARTIES
President Donald Trump announced his pardon of Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, on Truth Social in December. (Nathan Howard/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“He and his wife were facing up to 20 years in prison because he was ‘stupid’ in what he did but, more importantly, because the Biden administration used Cuellar and his wife as a political weapon because they disagreed with his policies on the southern border,” Trump wrote. “He was a weak and incompetent version of myself, who wanted the border closed to criminals, to drug dealers, to people living in mental institutions, and, above all, to murderers and violent criminals who were in prisons and mental institutions, and who should never have been allowed to be released into our country.”
The president added that Cuellar’s views were “not strong,” but he alleged that Democrats retaliated against him in an effort to imprison him for life.
“As an expert in political weaponry, based on what Biden’s losers did to me, and without ever having met Henry Cuellar, and especially because of the magnificence of the letter drawn by his daughters asking me to help ‘Mom and Dad,’ I have granted him and Mrs. Cuellar a full and unconditional pardon,” Trump wrote. “In doing so, I never thought he would run for office again, and certainly not as a Democrat.”
Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, was accused of accepting more than half a million dollars in bribes from an Azerbaijani-owned energy company and a Mexican bank. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
WATCH: DEM LEGISLATOR THANKS TRUMP FOR FORGIVENESS, SAYS IT’S A SURPRISE AMID RE-ELECTION CANDIDACY
Trump said: “although he did [Cuellar] by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM”, he will say endorses Tijerina for Congress because Cuellar’s opinions are “not as good or as strong.”
The Justice Department previously said Cuellar’s alleged bribes were laundered through a series of shell companies and middlemen within shell companies owned by his wife, Imelda, who performed “little or no legitimate work under the contracts.”
President Donald Trump said Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, and his wife face up to 20 years in prison for the alleged crimes. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
In exchange, the DOJ said Cuellar allegedly agreed to use your office to influence American foreign policy towards Azerbaijan.
Tijerina, who was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 1993, served three terms as a Webb County judge after retiring from baseball.
