Hakeem Jeffries Sides With Trump Over Pardon For Texas Democrat

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries agreed with President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon Rep. Henry Cuellar on bribery, money laundering, and “foreign influence” charges from the Biden-era Justice Department in 2024.

“Listen, the reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view. 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,” the Democrat leader said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” on Wednesday, adding that Cuellar is a “beloved” member of the chamber.

He further added, “I don’t know why the President decided to do this. I think the outcome was exactly the right outcome.”

When CNN asked Jeffries if Cuellar had planned to switch parties, as he represents a south Texas district that the president won last year, he anticipates that the lawmaker will remain a Democrat.

“I think Congressman Cuellar is a highly-valued Member of the House Democratic Caucus, and I expect that he’ll continue to remain a highly-valued Member of the House Democratic Caucus,” he added.

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The Texas Democrat filed to run in the Democratic primary earlier on Wednesday. Punchbowl News reported that Cuellar said “nothing has changed” when asked on Capitol Hill after the pardon whether he planned to become a Republican.

The 2024 indictment alleged that Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, “accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities: an oil and gas company wholly owned and controlled by the Government of Azerbaijan, and a bank headquartered in Mexico City.”

Trump has been a critic of the indictment since it was announced in May 2024, saying it was politically motivated due to the congressman’s opposition to the Biden administration’s lax border policies. The Biden administration caught flak from Republicans and a handful of Democrats for the border crisis that persisted throughout the term, which led to major humanitarian issues in communities throughout the southwest that were ill-equipped to handle the resulting massive influx of individuals crossing illegally.

“I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts. I thank God for standing with my family and I during this difficult time. This decision clears the air and lets us move forward for South Texas,” the Democrat said in an X post on Wednesday. “This pardon gives us a clean slate. The noise is gone. The work remains. And I intend to meet it head on.”

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that Cuellar had ultimately been targeted for “speaking the TRUTH.”

“Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!” the president added.

Cuellar is expected to have a competitive race in 2026, with the Cook Political Report rating his district as a “toss-up.”