Henry Cuellar’s Strange Donation from the Family of a Zetas Cartel Conduit
The story never garnered national attention and largely disappeared after Cuellar’s campaign apparently donated the money to charity.
The story never garnered national attention and largely disappeared after Cuellar’s campaign apparently donated the money to charity.
T exas’s 28th congressional district is the site of one of the most closely watched House races this cycle. The heavily Latino area, which covers a long stretch of the Lone Star State’s southern border, was traditionally a reliably blue voting bloc. Its Democratic incumbent, Henry Cuellar, has represented the district in Congress since 2005. But as South Texas has shifted rightward, Cuellar’s political future looks increasingly uncertain. Like many Texas border communities, the 95 percent Latino electorate in Webb County — the largest county in South Texas, where Cuellar’s home of Laredo is situated — shifted toward Republicans by double-digit margins from 2016 to 2020. This cycle, Cook Political Report gives TX-28 a three-point Democratic advantage — far from safe-blue in a red-wave year.
Cuellar is a skilled retail politician and has tried to remain in step with his district’s relatively conservative voter base by distancing himself from the national Democratic Party’s leftward lurch. He is currently ranked as the most conservative Democrat in the U.S. House and was the only Democrat in the lower chamber to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have effectively legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy nationwide. While Cuellar over-performed Biden’s showing in TX-28 by a whopping 15 points in 2020, his positioning has also come at a cost: The congressman is a frequent target of progressive ire, and he only narrowly survived a primary challenge from his left earlier this year.
At the same time, he’s been trailed by controversies surrounding allegations of personal corruption. This January, Cuellar’s Laredo home and campaign headquarters were the subject of an FBI raid, purportedly as part of a “court-authorized law enforcement activity” related to an investigation of the lawmaker’s links to the nation of Azerbaijan. On the heels of the raid, the Texas Tribune reported, “a grand jury sought records related to Cuellar, his wife and one of his campaign staffers over connections to Azerbaijan. Cuellar is a member of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus and often speaks out advocating for the oil-rich country.” (Cuellar’s attorney maintains that the congressman “is not a target of the investigation,” but the FBI has yet to comment further. At the time of the raid, at least one former U.S. attorney told San Antonio’s KENS 5 that “Cuellar is probably not just a witness in the case.”)
The FBI raid featured prominently in progressive attacks on Cuellar during the primary and has continued to dog him in Republican ads during the general election. But it isn’t the congressman’s only run-in with controversy: One less-scrutinized incident involved contributions from the family of a conduit for Los Zetas, the notoriously brutal Mexican criminal syndicate described by U.S. officials as “the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico.” In 2012, Cuellar and his brother, Webb County sheriff Martin Cuellar, became the subjects of scrutiny in local media when federal agents arrested a Mexican citizen — and legal U.S. resident — named Antonio Peña Arguelles in San Antonio. “An affidavit filed by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent outlining the allegations against Peña Arguelles” alleged “that Peña Arguelles funneled millions of dollars from the Zetas” to high-ranking Mexican politicians, describing “Peña Arguelles as a conduit between Mexican politicians. . . and Zeta (drug cartel) members,” My San Antonio reported at the time. But Peña Arguelles, who was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for money laundering on behalf of the Zetas in 2014, had also donated to U.S. officials — including Martin Cuellar. And Peña Arguelles’s then-wife had reportedly donated to Henry Cuellar.
The fallout’s reaching the U.S., too. A spokesman for the campaigns of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and his brother, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar, said they’ve returned or given to charity campaign donations from Peña-Arguelles, the accused conduit between the cartels and Mexican politicians.
In 2007, Peña Arguelles gave $1,500 to Martin Cuellar’s election campaign, and in 2006 [the former’s] then-wife, Armandina, gave $1,000 to the reelection effort of Henry Cuellar.
Martin Cuellar asked the person who solicited the donation from Peña Arguelles to return it, said spokesman Colin Strother, and Henry Cuellar donated the money to charity. They did so last year, after learning that Peña Arguelles’ brother was slain in Nuevo Laredo, and his killers left a note accusing the brothers of working with the Zetas.
The story never garnered national attention and largely disappeared after Cuellar’s campaign apparently donated the money to charity. But as the border — and, in particular, the role of cartels in facilitating and exacerbating the border crisis — takes center stage in this year’s election in South Texas, Cuellar’s strange donation link to an alleged conduit for one of the largest and most violent cartels in the region could be a liability. Cartels leave a heavy footprint in the Rio Grande Valley, and a large segment of the region’s economy is linked to Border Patrol jobs. Notably, the National Border Patrol Council — the labor union representing some 18,000 Border Patrol agents — opted to endorse Cuellar’s Republican challenger, Cassy Garcia, over the Democratic incumbent this year, despite having routinely endorsed Cuellar in past elections. Garcia, who is married to a Border Patrol agent, has campaigned on the border crisis — and against Cuellar’s alleged ethical misconduct: “Come January, when I raise my right hand and place the other on the Bible, I will swear an oath, not just to the Constitution, but to restore honor and dignity to this office,” the Republican told National Review in a statement.
After this article was first posted, Cueller’s campaign issued a statement to NR downplaying the contribution and saying the congressman was not aware of the donor’s background:
Resurfacing this 10 year old story is a blatant smear attempt just 8 days before Election Day. The facts here are simple — as was reported at the time, Rep. Cuellar received a contribution from this individual’s wife and had no knowledge of their background.
Furthermore, these individuals had a close relationship with President George Bush and Governor Rick Perry.
Rep. Cuellar acted immediately and donated the money to charity. It is impossible to vet the history of every single donor and once this was discovered, swift action was taken.
Additionally, Sheriff Martin Cuellar promptly returned the donation he received.