Remember the bribery and money-laundering indictment of Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28)? Two of his aides just flipped.
Two former consultants to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar have agreed to plead guilty to assisting the lawmaker in laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Mexican bank.
Colin Strother, the South Texas Democrat’s former campaign manager, and Florencio “Lencho” Rendon struck separate deals with the U.S. Department of Justice in March, where they agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
The first of the two to come clean was Strother, who signed his agreement on March 6. Nine days later, Rendon entered into his deal with federal prosecutors.
In Rendon’s agreement, the operation’s origins are stated to have begun in 2015, when Rendon met with Banco Azteca executives at Cuellar’s behest to discuss supposed regulatory issues facing the bank.
After the meetings, Rendon allegedly signed a contract paying him upwards of $15,000 monthly to provide consulting for an unnamed “U.S.-based media and television company” connected to Banco Azteca.
Strother’s deal details that Cuellar then allegedly commissioned Rendon to meet Strother, where Rendon offered Strother $11,000 a month to participate in a clandestine project that Strother eventually determined to be “a sham.”
Rendon’s agreement notes that he kept $4,000 for his consulting firm, while he expected Strother to keep $1,000 for himself and forward the remaining $10,000 to Imelda Cuellar’s company.
Rendon paid Strother $261,000 total from March 2016 to June 2019. Over $236,000 of those funds were allegedly funneled to Cuellar’s wife, Imelda Cuellar.
Prosecutors believe the transactions were part of an effort by Cuellar to hide the money from required U.S. financial disclosures.
Rendon and Strother have agreed to testify before a grand jury or any other judicial proceeding as part of their plea deals. Both still face up to 20 years in prison and onerous fines for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Having your bagman flip on you is never a good sign for beating a rap, so I’d say it’s already highly likely Cueller will be going from the House to the big house, especially since a third aide has flipped.
A third person with ties to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s bribery case has pleaded guilty, according to a recently unsealed plea agreement, after the South Texas Democrat was accused of accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank.
Irada Akhoundova pleaded guilty to unlawfully acting as an agent of the Azerbaijani government and a state-run oil company, a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, on May 1, according to the plea deal first reported by the San Antonio Express-News. Akhoundova admitted to facilitating a $60,000 payment to Imelda Cuellar, the congressman’s wife, who was also indicted last month.
For nearly 20 years, Akhoundova has served as the president of the Houston-Baku Sister City Association, a nonprofit that builds ties between the Texas city and Azerbaijan’s capital, according to her LinkedIn profile. The plea agreement describes Akhoundova as an active member of the Texas Azerbaijani-American community. The court filing states that she served as the director of a U.S. affiliate of a Baku-based company, from approximately 2014 to 2017.
Unlike U.S. Senators, Governors cannot appoint interim U.S. House members. Article I, Section 2, Clause 4 of the Constitution states: “When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.” According to the Texas election code, U.S. House special elections operate under the same rules as Texas legislature special elections, namely “a special election shall be held on the first uniform election date occurring on or after the 36th day after the date the election is ordered. (b) If the election is to be held as an emergency election, it shall be held on a Tuesday or Saturday occurring on or after the 36th day and on or before the 64th day after the date the election is ordered.” If Cuellar resigns in May, June, or July, presumably Governor Abbott will call a special election for the seat.
In August, the issue starts running up on general election deadlines. By Texas law, a party official has 74 days before an election to remove a candidate’s name from the ballot, but the Texas Secretary of State says August 19 is the date, which looks like 78 days, which matches this doc on filling vacancies. If Cuellar resigns or pleads guilty before that date, Democrats can presumably pick another candidate to run in the November election. Beyond that date, presumably whichever of Republicans Jay Furman and Lazaro Garza Jr. (who are competing in the runoff to challenge Cuellar) is nominated will win the seat, since Cuellar will be ineligible to serve despite his name being on the ballot.
Final thought: Cuellar is the last even nominally pro-life Democrat in the U.S. House. The conspiracy-minded might think this is the only reason the Biden DOJ was allowed to indict him…
Tags: 2024 Election, Azerbaijan, Banco Azteca, bribes, Colin Strother, corruption, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Florencio "Lencho" Rendon, Henry Cuellar, Imelda Cuellar, Irada Akhoundova, Jay Furman, Lazaro Garza Jr., Luca Cacciatore, Mexico, Texas, Texas 28th Congressional District, Texas Scorecard
No doubt he is a crook. How rich is he? How much gain before criminality can be presumed?
Exile or jail for them and their families.
“Final thought: Cuellar is the last even nominally pro-life Democrat in the U.S. House. The conspiracy-minded might think this is the only reason the Biden DOJ was allowed to indict him…”
I may be worth mentioning that US House Representative Cuellar also got an “A” rating from the NRA. Seemingly, his maverick streak was a factor in this indictment.
[…] POPPED: Cuellar Aides Flip. “Having your bagman flip on you is never a good sign for beating a rap, so I’d say it’s […]
While I have no idea of Cuellar’s guilt, given what Big Justice can do to anybody (see Flynn and Malinowski), getting somebody to testify as desired seems too easy and not necessarily evidence of guilt.
“Imelda Cuellar”
Oh, the irony…
Cuellar has also been an outspoken proponent of Trumpian-type Border Security, of decrying the Biden Invasion(s), across the Southern Border.
The (d)s are HAPPILY ejecting him from the Borg, as he was not of The Body.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Since the accusations all come from the DOJ/FBI, I would have to assume they are lying and vote to acquit.
You can only burn down all of your credibility once.
I’m puzzled (which is not unusual).
You state that Cuellar would be ineligible to serve. Why? Neither an indictment or a conviction would disqualify him from the House (per the Constitution).
[…] looking good for Democrat Cuellar. […]
Everything Lawrence and Malthus said, plus:
Cuellar has not been a good Democrat soldier on the border and illegal immigration.He has called fro more money for border enforcement and founded as co-chair “Democrats for Border Security” to try to steer The Party away from its lunatic border policy.
Certainly he’s a crook and should go to jail, but it also seems certain that under the current DOJ’s practices, his indictment now smells suspiciously vengeful.
Remember, when the mayor of New York went to DC to give Biden an earful about immigration, and upon his arrival in DC, his offices back home were raided by the FBI?
Y’know… Strikes me as odd that these “aides” would flip. What do we know about them?
I think one of the bigger issues we’ve had grow up in Congress is the permanent floating set of professional “aides and consultants” in DC. Those folks aren’t beholden to the home district, nor do they tend to have much to do with it. They are usually mercenary as hell, too: Look at who surfaced as Fetterman’s Chief of Staff, and was running his office for him while he was hospitalized.
I’m not sure we’re getting real representational republic results these days, and that’s largely down to the fact that the various elected parties in Congress aren’t actually doing much of the work. It’s all consultants, lobbyists, and “professional” administrative aides.
I think that we ought to do a couple of things, to fix our Federal government: First, no more professional politicians. You get five years of your life to work for the government, and then you’re done. Period. Any capacity above about shop foreman in the civil government, you’re limited to five years, no more. I don’t care about “professionalization issues”, I just don’t want there to be any potential for another J. Edgar Hoover. Or, Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, or…
You get the idea. If we need technical expertise, it ought to come from a permanent floating body of advisers that are essentially powerless, and made such intentionally so as not to allow for corruption to form as we see in the CDC. I’d even be up for saying that if you take up the law and become a lawyer… No voting for you, ever. Advise on writing the laws? By all means… Voting them in? Oh, hell no… Right now, what we’ve got in Congress is a bunch of foxes administering the henhouse for their own benefit; too many f*cking lawyers writing themselves writs for permanent employment.
While I’m at it? Let’s reform the judicial branch, particularly criminal judging: They ought to be evaluated by the number of recidivists they produce. You put a guy in jail for a crime, and because you gave him a light sentence, then gets out and commits more crime? You get thrown off the bench after enough of those. Permanently enjoined from ever being judge or working in the legal system again…
The law ought to be viewed similarly to the old monastic orders; you want to be a lawyer? Fine, be one… Just don’t ever plan on writing or voting on laws for everyone else.
Frankly, if there’s a bill that leaves a legislature that can’t be easily understood by a fifth-grader? That law ought to be held invalid on its face.
We’re suffering from a surfeit of complexity, at all levels. And, we’ve mostly done it to ourselves, at the behest of a class of rent-seeking scumbags whose allegiance is only to themselves…
Cuellar was briefly a practicing attorney with his own firm. But he’s been a politician almost exclusively for the past 37 years (he’s 68, so that’s more than half his life), first in Texas (1987-2001) then serving in the House.