Democrats Return Henry Cuellar to Powerful Spending Post After Trump Pardon

House Democrats on Thursday voted to return Rep. Henry Cuellar to his leadership role on the House Appropriations Committee following his presidential pardon on federal corruption charges.

“We got ratified,” Cuellar told reporters after the vote.

President Donald Trump granted Cuellar clemency in a surprise move last week, saying the Texas Democrat was targeted for speaking out against some of President Joe Biden’s policies, including his immigration agenda.

“Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.

Immediately following the pardon, however, Cuellar announced he would run for reelection as a Democrat, ending his good will with Trump.

“Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like,” Trump said in an angry Truth Social post Sunday. “Oh well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”

Cuellar was charged in 2024 for allegedly accepting $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities, according to an indictment released by the Justice Department. The indictment accused Cuellar of accepting payments from Azerbaijan’s state-run oil-and-gas company after they had been laundered through shell companies owned by his wife.

Cuellar has denied all of the allegations.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries defended Cuellar following his pardon, saying that he is a “highly valued member of the House Democratic Caucus.”

“Listen, the reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view,” Jeffries said. “The charges were eventually going to be dismissed, if not at the trial court level, by the Supreme Court, as they’ve repeatedly done in instances just like this.”

Rep. Lois Frankel, a senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, on Thursday pointed out that the pardon effectively meant the legal process had concluded and nothing else barred Cuellar from returning to his previous assignments.

“Just look at the rules,” Frankel said. “There’s nothing more to say.”