Primary Jeffries

Henry Cuellar, in addition to being a morally corrupt DINO, was indicted in 2004 for taking bribes from a Mexican bank and an Azerbaijani oil company.

In a transparent attempt to get him to switch party, Donald Trump pardoned him, which was not a surprise, but Hakeem Jeffries effusively praised Donald Trump's pardon.

The obvious conclusion is that Jeffries is aware of more corruption in the House Democratic Party Caucus, and doesn't want to turn over those rocks.

Also, it shows his default position is to support the incumbent, no matter how bad they are for the party and the American people.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday backed President Trump’s decision to provide a preemptive pardon for Rep. Henry Cuellar, suggesting the corruption charges against the longtime Texas Democrat were so “thin” that he wouldn’t have been convicted anyway.

“I don’t know why the president decided to do this, [but] I think the outcome was exactly the right outcome,” Jeffries said in an interview with CNN.

………

But in the case of Cuellar, the Democratic leader has taken a softer approach. AndWednesday, following Trump’s pardon, Jeffries questioned the legitimacy of the corruption charges against him. 

“Listen, the reality is [that] this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view,” Jeffries told CNN. “The charges were eventually going to be dismissed — if not at the trial court level [then] by the Supreme Court, as they’ve repeatedly done in instances just like this.” 

Sorry, no.  Just no.

He should not be the House Democrat's leader, and he should not be in Congress at all.

Also, there is an interesting coda to all of this, in an admission that his pardon was an explicit attempt to bribe Cuellar to switch parties, raged against Cuellar's "Disloyalty" for not switching parties.

Donald Trump is angry that Rep. Henry Cuellar is running again as a Democrat rather than switch parties after the president pardoned the Texas congressman and his wife in a federal bribery and conspiracy case.

Trump blasted Cuellar for “Such a lack of LOYALTY,” suggesting the Republican president might have expected the clemency to bolster the GOP’s narrow House majority heading into the 2026 midterm elections.

Cuellar, in a television interview Sunday after Trump’s social media post, said he was a conservative Democrat willing to work with the administration “to see where we can find common ground.” The congressman said he had prayed for the president and the presidency at church that morning “because if the president succeeds, the country succeeds.”

But in the case of Cuellar, the Democratic leader has taken a softer approach. AndWednesday, following Trump’s pardon, Jeffries questioned the legitimacy of the corruption charges against him. 

………

“Listen, the reality is [that] this indictment was very thin to begin with, in my view,” Jeffries told CNN. “The charges were eventually going to be dismissed — if not at the trial court level [then] by the Supreme Court, as they’ve repeatedly done in instances just like this.” 

………

Federal authorities had charged Cuellar and his wife with accepting thousands of dollars in exchange for the congressman advancing the interests of an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar was accused of agreeing to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.

Of course, this explicit attempted bribery does not matter, because the Supreme Court made Donald Trump above the law.