Trump pardons Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar | AP News
By: MICHELLE L. PRICE (AP News)
Trump yet again acting as though he were king.
He preempts the judicial process.
There is a pattern of Trump giving legal breaks to those who have done (or are accused of doing) what he has done his entire life.
This is sick.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump pardoned Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case on Wednesday, citing what he called a "weaponized" justice system.
Trump, who has argued that his own legal troubles were a partisan witch hunt, said on social media without presenting evidence that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, were prosecuted because the congressman had been critical of President Joe Biden's immigration policies.
Trump, a Republican, said in a social media post that Cuellar "bravely spoke out against Open Borders" and accused Biden, a Democrat, of going after the congressman and his wife "simply for speaking the TRUTH."
Federal authorities had charged Cuellar, 69, and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar is accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.
Cuellar has said he and his wife are innocent.
"Henry, I don't know you, but you can sleep well tonight," Trump wrote in his social media post announcing the pardon. "Your nightmare is finally over!"
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The couple's trial had been set to begin next April.
Cuellar has served in Congress for more than 20 years, and his district stretches from San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas.
Cuellar is not the only Democrat Trump has pardoned this year. In February, he pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, five years after he had commuted his sentence in a political corruption case.
Like in Cuellar's case, Trump suggested that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, faced federal corruption charges because he made comments critical of Biden's immigration policies.
Trump did not pardon Adams, but after Trump took office, the Justice Department moved to drop the case against the mayor, who had begun working with the Republican administration on immigration issues.
A top Justice Department official, who was also Trump's defense lawyer in several of his cases, stepped in to seek dismissal in the case.
MICHELLE L. PRICE Price covers the White House. She previously covered the 2024 presidential campaign and politics, government and other news in New York, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. She is based in Washington.
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The rule of law used to be dominant in the USA. It is a pillar of our Republic. Now we have an asshole who should never have been elected continually engaging in the rule of man (himself).
Joe Biden isn't president anymore, though I understand your rage at his abuse of the pardon power lasting this long.
Biden did not operate as if he were a king.
Amazing how you can cavalierly ignore Trump's continual abuse of power and instead run back to Biden whose pardons were typically done to protect people from Trump.
What drives people like you to excuse every wrongdoing by Trump?
This is all anyone does anymore. Rather than try to defend or condemn Trump doing the indefensible, all we get is “what about Biden/Obama?”
partisanship
Spot on. Blind, irrational partisanship.
Because it's silly watching partisans who defended Biden abusing the pardon power go into hysterics over what Trump is doing. What did progressive imagine was going to happen after Biden pardoned his family and political cronies? That Trump wouldn't do the same thing?
It's not what Trump is doing that bothers democrats, it's that a Republican is doing it. If generic Democrat President did the exact same things, the people currently engaging in histrionics would be defending it to their last breath.
I'm perfectly fine with anyone attacking Trump as vitriolically as they did Biden for abusing the pardon power. But the blind partisans who sat quietly or defended Biden now claiming outrage aren't worth more than eyeroll in response.
Not close to the same thing. The pardon of Biden's family is understandable and obvious. Trump was openly threatening to go after them. For his part, Trump is pushing prosecutions on people he sees as political rivals, so Biden made the right call for his family. Clearly.
Trump has pardoned hundreds of people convicted of violent crimes. He just pardoned the Honduran president, who was also a drug lord who openly bragged about what he was doing. Trump claimed the man was set up, but he promised to "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." If Trump really cared about stopping drugs coming into this country, he would have let this guy rot in prison.
Trump also is pardoning people who give him money. They are obvious bribes - one of the few crimes explicitly mentioned in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment.
I'm not going to defend every last pardon given by any president, but most of the time, they pardon people who are aren't genuine narco-terrorists, assaulters of police, or general menaces to society. And they definitely aren't people contributing to the financial interests of the president.
But my point was - and remains - all you have to offer is "Whatabout Obama? Whatabout Biden?" So, now that you got that off your chest, talk about what Trump is doing, which is the topic of the seed.
Lol. Exactly what I'm talking about. Just say "whatever democrats do good-republicans bad" and save the trouble.
You keep claiming equivalence without evidence. Worse, you repeat the claim despite being supplied with evidence to the contrary. It’s like talking to a flat-earther.
He can't.
That's a step up from mindlessly defending Biden and blaming Trump at least. Flat earthers at least put some thought into their b.s.
That is truly hilarious and apropos coming from rightwing conservatives. It's like the blind leading the blind.
somebody seems to have forgotten that all major religions promoted the flat earth concept, well beyond the columbus voyages, and at one time the term flat earthers was a derogatory term used for xtians.
Which hasn’t been happening in either this seed or the comments.
Oh my Lord. You really believe that? Holy shit. I knew I was on to something.
One person that never should have been pardoned was Blago
This Cuellar guy sounds like a real piece of work, too. I know it doesn't occur to trmp and the MAGAites that Biden had nothing to do with his arrest and indictment but we're not dealing with brains that live in this world
Well at least this shows that Trump is bipartisan with regards to pardoning white collar criminals.
So, it’s probably not unreasonable to ask if he bribed Trump in some way.
It was a move to try and deflect from the many pardons of other Republican criminals he handed out trying to draw attention to a Democrat instead.
He just pardoned a major drug dealer, the ex President of Honduras so no doubt it's simply a "look squirrel" moment to take the heat off him and his own corruption.
I wonder how POS/POTUS decides which drug smugglers get pardons and which ones get blown away on the high seas ...
He asks himself, "How much can they pay me?"
tell me what drug kingpin puts 11 people on a fast boat supposedly full of alleged drugs, when each extra person represents about 75 kilos of coke that won't be making the trip.
Taking the war on drugs so seriously.