Trump assaults Democrat he simply pardoned over a ‘lack of LOYALTY’ | EUROtoday

Donald Trump indicated he regretted his determination to pardon a Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, after Cuellar’s announcement this previous week that he would search re-election.

Since his election in 2004, Cuellar has lengthy been certainly one of his occasion’s most conservative members. In May of 2024, he was indicted on costs of bribery and cash laundering and accused of taking roughly $600,000 in complete from two banks in Mexico and Azerbaijan.

Having been underneath investigation by the FBI for greater than three years, Cuellar lengthy maintained his innocence and was awaiting trial when Trump issued a pardon for him on Wednesday.

But now, the president appears to be having second ideas after Cuellar mentioned he deliberate to run for one more time period in 2026. That’s regardless of the first challenges he’s confronted from his personal occasion in recent times.

Trump wrote on Truth Social early Sunday: “I signed the papers, and said to people in the Oval Office that I just did a very good, perhaps life saving, thing. God was very happy with me that day!”

He bizarrely insisted that Cuellar’s daughters could be indignant with the congressman over his determination. Cuellar’s kids would not have distinguished public profiles and should not concerned of their father’s work in Washington. He sometimes posts about them on social media.

Prior to posting about Cuellar’s pardon, Trump posted a letter he obtained from the congressman’s daughter concerning their father’s case.

“THEN IT HAPPENED!!! Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be “running” for Congress once more, within the Great State of Texas (a State the place I obtained the very best variety of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, persevering with to work with the identical Radical Left Scum that simply weeks earlier than wished him and his spouse to spend the remainder of their lives in Prison – And in all probability nonetheless do!” Trump complained, bemoaning, “Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like.”

He added: “Oh’ [sic] well, next time, no more Mr. Nice guy!”

The nature of Trump’s comment insinuates that the president aimed to persuade Cuellar to desert his occasion or his congressional seal in a present of gratitude for the pardon.

Instead, Cuellar filed for re-election the identical day the pardon was granted.

The Democratic congressman hasn’t spoken publicly in regards to the pardon course of, however even underneath the pardon-happy second Trump administration, Americans who the president grants clemency should formally apply for it, per the Justice Department’s web site.

Since taking workplace in January, Trump has exercised the pardon authority at a quicker tempo than most presidents. He has used the instrument to straight profit his personal supporters, together with however not restricted to the tons of of Americans charged for numerous crimes in response to the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The president additionally used it to pardon others who lobbied his marketing campaign and subsequent administration. Recently, the pardon authority was used to protect members of his 2020 marketing campaign authorized crew, together with Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, and Kenneth Chesebro, from lingering obligation for the “fake electors” scheme.

Trump additionally turned many heads in Washington with the pardon of the previous president of Honduras, convicted final yr for drug trafficking, regardless of the Trump administration’s present aggressive actions towards alleged drug boats within the Caribbean.

Cuellar is likely one of the Democrats’ frontline members, and his seat flipping for any cause could be a blow to his occasion in Texas and nationally.

Most analysts and, more and more, many Republicans are warning that Democrats are on tempo to retake the House in subsequent yr’s midterms. Cuellar switching events or dropping out would endanger that aim.

But Republicans have sought to make these entreaties earlier than, and Democratic leaders (with whom he nonetheless maintains good relationships) have helped Cuellar win powerful races earlier than — making the loyalty equation a extra difficult query for the congressman.