Is Henry Cuellar's Political Support Strong Enough to Weather an FBI Raid?
Late in the afternoon on January 19, as a cold front began to creep in from the north, rumors began spreading through Laredo. Prominent Democrats in the city—a deep blue stronghold—texted and called one another about a potential FBI raid on the office of nine-term congressman Henry Cuellar. “The FBI at Henry’s office. Are u aware?” came a text on my phone as I was on my way to an interview with one well-known organizer. The official confirmation arrived a few minutes after I did: the organizer looked at her phone, ashen-faced and silent. Within minutes, the news spread. A colorful citizen journalist, Priscilla Villarreal (a.k.a. Lagordiloca), began livestreaming the scene as FBI vehicles congregated in front of Cuellar’s campaign headquarters. Elsewhere in Laredo, as the sun set on a well-heeled community of handsome limestone houses, agents raided the congressman’s home.
To say Cuellar is an “institution” in South Texas understates his power. A Democrat, Cuellar first won election to the state House of Representatives in 1987. After fourteen years in the seat, he served as Texas Secretary of State under Republican governor Rick Perry. Since then, he has spent nine terms representing Texas’s Twenty-eighth Congressional District, which curls along the Rio Grande and shoots up to the southern suburbs of San Antonio like a backwards J. In Washington, Cuellar’s record—especially on issues including abortion, border control, and energy—has made him one of the most conservative Democrats in the House and has earned him a reputation as a villain among the party’s left wing. His views, however, often reflect those of the generally more conservative Democrats he represents (“I’m doing what I think is right, listening to my folks,” Cuellar told me last year.) In Laredo, he’s known as a kingmaker and reliable provider of federal bacon. The congressman has brought significant public spending to his district through his role on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.
When the FBI knocked on Cuellar’s door, the reverberations spread from the banks of the Rio Grande to skyscrapers in San Antonio. Now much of South Texas feels like an old-growth forest where a towering sequoia has suddenly begun to creak and sway. Townspeople are asking one another whether the mighty patriarch might fall—and who and what he could bring down with him.
There’s still a question of whether all the noise is just that—noise. As of press time, Cuellar has not been charged with any crime, and it remains possible that the raid is connected to wrongdoing suspected to have been committed by an associate. The FBI says its agents conducted a “court-authorized” search in Cuellar’s home and office, in connection with a grand jury investigation into several yet-unnamed U.S. businesspeople and activity in Azerbaijan. The grand jury has issued a bevy of subpoenas to U.S. companies with ties to the former Soviet republic, and has also subpoenaed Cuellar, his wife Imelda Cuellar, and at least one campaign staffer, according to ABC News. While Cuellar’s connection to the investigation is unknown, the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section is involved with the probe—a unit that investigates elected officials and their campaign financing. Cuellar has said he will “fully cooperate” with the investigation.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/henry-cuellar-fbi-raid/