News: House Democrats are set to restore Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Texas) post as the party’s top lawmaker on a key Appropriations subcommittee, according to multiple Democratic sources.
The move is expected to come this week, the sources said.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, sent out a note last week to Democratic appropriators asking if there were “any objections” to Cuellar returning as the ranking member on the Homeland subcommittee. DeLauro set a Tuesday deadline for those objections.
If there are no such objections, DeLauro will tell the Democratic leadership that Cuellar’s return to the position was approved by unanimous consent. If there are objections, Democratic appropriators will vote on the issue, DeLauro said. Democratic appropriators are expected to meet Thursday.
Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) is the acting ranking member on the Homeland subcommittee currently.
Cuellar had no comment at press time. Underwood’s office also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
All this comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s controversial pardon of Cuellar, who was indicted along with his wife Imelda in May 2024 on an array of federal criminal charges, including bribery, money laundering and acting as a foreign agent. The Texas Democrat allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from an Azerbaijani oil company and a Mexican bank over a years-long period.
There was intense speculation that Cuellar would switch parties following his surprise pardon by Trump.
But Trump lashed out at Cuellar on Sunday on Truth Social after the 70-year-old Cuellar registered to run for reelection as a Democrat:
“Only a short time after signing the Pardon, Congressman Henry Cuellar announced that he will be ‘running’ for Congress again, in the Great State of Texas (a State where I received the highest number of votes ever recorded!), as a Democrat, continuing to work with the same Radical Left Scum that just weeks before wanted him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives in Prison – And probably still do! Such a lack of LOYALTY, something that Texas Voters, and Henry’s daughters, will not like.”
Cuellar repeatedly told reporters that “nothing has changed” last week following the pardon, meaning he wasn’t changing parties.
