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There are a multitude of reasons why Democrats may not be able to win back the House of Representatives this year. Gerrymandering and voter suppression laws passed by Republican state legislatures. Lack of enthusiasm for the presidential race becoming a drag on some of the down-ballot races. Mercury being in retrograde for most of August.
Oh, and that asshole Rep. Henry Cuellar getting indicted on federal bribery and money laundering charges, thus endangering control of his D+3 district in an election where the winning party might very well only have a two- or three- or some other ridiculously low number-seat advantage. Great job, likely nominee for Wonkette’s Legislative Shitmuffin of the Year award!
Cuellar and his wife, Imelda (a name that probably should have been a flashing warning light), are accused of taking roughly $600,000 in bribes over the last decade or so from a Mexican bank and an Azerbaijani oil and gas company. The bribes were allegedly paid by laundering them through a bunch of shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar and disguised as payments for nonexistent consulting services.
“In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan,” DOJ continued. “In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. Executive Branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank.”
The indictment is here in case anyone feels like spending a lovely weekend reading the grubby particulars. Don’t skip the part where the DOJ alleges the Cuellars used laundered funds from one of the shell companies to pay their taxes and $58,000 worth of credit card charges. Nothing as exciting as, say, keeping gold bars given to you by shady Egyptian businessmen in your house or carrying on affairs with women who are not your wife or stealing your donors’ credit card numbers to buy cashmere sweaters at Prada or wherever the hell George Santos likes to shop, but it is still fun to imagine how fancy of a custom gown $12,000 of Azerbaijani money bought them.
Cuellar has been under investigation since 2022, when the feds raided his house and campaign office as part of an investigation into his relationship with an Azerbaijani businessman. That helped boost one of his primary opponents, Jessica Cisneros, in a close race. Cisneros was an actual progressive, as opposed to the anti-abortion, immigration hardliner Cuellar. As is standard tradition in the Democratic Party, congressional leadership parachuted in to campaign for the incumbent. One day maybe leadership will rethink that tradition? Eh, probably not.
Anyway, the primary was close enough that it went to a runoff, where Cuellar beat Cisneros by a little under 300 votes. Imagine the angst the Democrats could have spared themselves if they had helped get this schmuck out of office two years ago.
Cuellar swears, by the way, that facing 20 years in prison will not stop him from running for re-election in November, probably because 20 more years serving with Marjorie Taylor Greene might be punishment enough for all the crimes with which he’s charged.
Remarkably, the Cuellars are only the second Democratic congressional couple to be charged with a whole plethora of white collar crimes in the last nine months. Googly-eyed Sen. Bob Menendez’s trial begins on Monday, and he reportedly is going to throw his wife, who is being tried separately later in the summer, under the bus.
Defense attorneys said Menendez could take the stand in his own defense and implicate his wife by suggesting she kept information from him and he was unaware of her allegedly illegal activities.
Women, amirite? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t believe ‘em when they tell you the bars of gold stashed around the house are merely Hanukkah gelt.
So far, Democratic leaders are standing behind Cuellar, which luckily has never backfired on them before.
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