Rep. Henry Cuellar was indicted on federal bribery and money-laundering charges in 2024, denied wrongdoing, and was pardoned in December 2025 before trial; a House Ethics subcommittee investigation was re-authorized in July 2025

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Criminal charges against Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were filed April 30, 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and the Justice Department announced the unsealed indictment on May 3, 2024. It alleged that from December 2014 through at least November 2021 they accepted approximately $600,000 in bribes from a Mexican bank and a company owned by the government of Azerbaijan in exchange for official acts, laundered through sham consulting contracts, and charged both with conspiracy to commit bribery and to act as an agent of a foreign principal, bribery, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, acting as an agent of a foreign principal, and money laundering. The Justice Department noted that an indictment is merely an allegation and that defendants are presumed innocent. The case did not go to trial (it had been set for April 2026, per the Texas Tribune) and he was never convicted: the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney lists a pardon for Enrique Roberto Cuellar and Imelda Rios Cuellar on December 2, 2025, covering those offenses. On May 29, 2024 the House Ethics Committee established an Investigative Subcommittee to determine whether Cuellar solicited or accepted bribes or gratuities, acted as a foreign agent, violated money-laundering laws, misused his position for private gain, or made false statements on his House disclosures, and on July 25, 2025 it unanimously re-authorized that subcommittee for the 119th Congress, noting that the mere fact of an investigation does not itself indicate a violation occurred. The committee's press-release archive, checked on October 5, 2026, lists no later statement on the matter; the advocacy group CREW urged the committee in January 2026 to continue the investigation. Cuellar publicly denied wrongdoing at the time of the indictment, saying he and his wife were "innocent of these allegations," and after the pardon said it gives him a "clean slate" and "clears the air." He is the Democratic incumbent seeking re-election in Texas's 28th district.

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