Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar alleged Sunday that officials linked to the Biden administration’s Department of Justice attempted to bribe and entrap him during a failed undercover sting operation.
The Department of Justice indicted Cuellar in early May 2024, alleging he accepted roughly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani government-linked oil and gas company and a Mexican bank in exchange for steering U.S. foreign policy in Azerbaijan’s favor. During an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo,” Cuellar said federal officials set up what he described as a fake company and financial account set up to funnel money to him as a supposed bribe.
“… even went and did a sting operation, a separate sting operation to try to bribe me. And that failed, and what they did there was wrong. So again, no quid pro quo from any of the evidence, from any of the individuals,” Cuellar told Bartiromo. “And, therefore, they even did attempted [sic] a sting operation where they were trying to entrap me, and that failed.”
Bartiromo pressed Cuellar on who allegedly orchestrated the effort, asking if he believed Biden’s Department of Justice stood behind it. Cuellar said the materials provided to his legal team traced the operation back to officials in Washington.
“We got all the testimony, the [FBI official form] 302s, the sting operation. They set up a false company, [and] a false account. They took out money — we saw all this — they took out the money and they said this money was to bribe me. They try to use this money,” Cuellar claimed. “They talked to my D.C. staff. My D.C. staff told them, ‘No, there was nothing there.’ So they actually returned the money back to the account because they couldn’t bribe me. So the Biden administration, they tried to entrap me and try to bribe me and that failed.”
Cuellar alleged Justice Department officials in Washington drove the failed probe against him while federal prosecutors in Houston refused to participate.
“And this is very significant because — one more thing — everything came in from the DOJ in D.C. Everything came from the DOC [sic] office there. The local office, that is the one in Houston, never got enough. And from my sources, they did not get involved because they felt there was not a case and they said, ‘We’re not gonna get involved,’” Cuellar explained. “The Houston office said, ‘We’re not gonna get involved.’ It’s all the DOJ people in Washington, D.C.”
Prosecutors charged Cuellar and his wife for allegedly receiving approximately $600,000 from figures tied to Azerbaijan and a Mexican banking institution over a seven-year period, accusing him of using his position in Congress to influence U.S. policy in Azerbaijan’s favor. Cuellar has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing following the indictment.
“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations,” Cuellar said in May 2024. “Before I took any action, I proactively sought legal advice from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm.”
Cuellar, who describes himself as a moderate Democrat in a largely Hispanic district, has often clashed with his own party on immigration, criticized former President Joe Biden’s handling of the border, and objected to fellow Democrats who opposed deporting a suspected MS-13 member earlier this year. He also supported several GOP-backed initiatives, including proposals aimed at reducing migrant-related crime, preserving women-only athletics, and backing a bipartisan agreement to reopen the federal government following its 2025 shutdown.
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