President Donald Trump on Monday evening urged Texans not to back Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), criticizing the Democratic lawmaker for launching a reelection campaign after the president pardoned him.
Trump pardoned Cuellar and his wife in December after the couple was indicted on corruption charges under former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. The charges related to bribery, illegal foreign influence, and money laundering after they were accused of taking over half a million dollars from an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank.
The president railed against Cuellar this week for running again and urged Texans to vote for Judge Tano Tijerina in the U.S. House race to represent the state’s 28th District. Trump said he “never assumed” Cuellar would be running for office again, “and certainly not as a Democrat,” as he said Biden’s party “essentially destroyed his life even with the Pardon given.”
“Being an expert on Political Weaponization, based on what the Biden Losers had done to me, and without having ever met Henry Cuellar, and in particular because of the magnificence of the letter drawn by his daughters asking me to help ‘Mom and Dad,’ I gave him and Mrs. Cuellar a full and unconditional Pardon,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social.
“In doing so, I never assumed he would be running for Office again, and certainly not as a Democrat, who essentially destroyed his life even with the Pardon given, but he did, and now, despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM, I am fighting him for his seat in Congress because his views are not nearly as good or strong as Judge Tano Tijerina, who is much more powerful on the Border issue, cutting Taxes, our Military, and just about everything else than is Henry Cuellar,” the president continued.
Cuellar is in his 11th term in the House. He won the primary for reelection in March, after saying the Biden administration’s Justice Department targeted him because he openly criticized its border policies.
Trump agreed, even furthering that argument in his latest Truth Social rant against the incumbent lawmaker. Trump has endorsed Cuellar’s opponent in the race, Tijerina, because of his “powerful” views on the border, cutting taxes, the military, and “just about everything else.”
HENRY CUELLAR BLAMES BIDEN DOJ FOR WEAPONIZATION AGAINST HIM
“[Cuellar] and his wife were headed to jail for up to 20 years because he was ‘stupid’ in what he did but, above all, because the Biden Administration practiced Political Weaponization on Cuellar and his wife because they didn’t agree with his policies on the Southern Border,” the president wrote in his post. “He was a weak and incompetent version of me, who wanted the Border closed to criminals, drug dealers, people from mental institutions and, above all, murderers and heavy handed criminals that were sitting in jails and mental institutions, and should never have been given the right to be released into our Country.”
“Henry’s views on these subjects were not strong, but they were better than other Democrats. Biden and his crew of Radical Left Thugs did not like those things about Cuellar, and they worked hard, and expected to put him in jail for the rest of his life,” Trump added.