Who is Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Texas Democrat indicted by the Justice Department?

The Justice Department on Friday indicted U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, charging the lawmaker and his wife with taking foreign bribes and money laundering.

Both Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, are accused of taking roughly $600,000 from an oil and gas company tied to the Azerbaijan government and a bank headquartered in Mexico City. The indictment accuses Cuellar of corruptly trying to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan and using his legislative clout to benefit the bank.

Here is what we know.

Who is Henry Cuellar?

Cuellar is serving his 10th term in the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas' 28th congressional district, which includes Laredo, Rio Grande City and San Antonio.

According to his biography, Cuellar was born in Laredo, where he earned his associate degree from Laredo Community College before enrolling at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He later earned several postgraduate degrees in Texas before he began practicing law in 1981. He also served as a Texas state representative and Texas secretary of state before becoming a U.S. congressman.

He, his wife and two daughters live in Laredo.

What are Rep. Cuellar's charges?

Cuellar and his wife are accused of taking about $600,000 from a company tied to the Azerbaijan government and a bank headquartered in Mexico City. Prosecutors allege the payments began in at least December 2014 and continued through at least November 2021.

Cuellar previously served as co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.

The bribes, according to the indictment, were laundered through shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar. The Cuellars have been slapped with charges related to bribery, wire fraud, money laundering and acting as foreign agents. The charges together carry decades of prison time if they are convicted.

The FBI searched Cuellar's home and campaign office in 2022 as part of a federal probe into Azerbaijan.

What did Rep. Cuellar say about the indictment?

“I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations,” Cuellar said in a statement to USA TODAY.

“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," he said. "Furthermore, we requested a meeting with the Washington D.C. prosecutors to explain the facts and they refused to discuss the case with us or to hear our side."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement that Cuellar "has admirably devoted his career to public service and is a valued Member of the House Democratic Caucus," adding that Cuellar "is entitled to his day in court and the presumption of innocence throughout the legal process."

Cuellar will step down as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee tasked with funding the Department of Homeland Security, Jeffries said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, swiftly responded to reports of an imminent criminal indictment and urged House Democrats to call on their colleague to resign.

“Henry Cuellar does not put Texas first, he puts himself first,” Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the NRCC said in a statement. “If his colleagues truly believe in putting ‘people over politics,’ they will call on him to resign. If not -- they are hypocrites whose statements about public service aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Who is Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Texas Democrat indicted by DOJ?