[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT]In 2013, U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife took a seemingly routine trip to Turkey and Azerbaijan, funded by an obscure Houston-based nonprofit.
The Cuellars allegedly funneled money through front companies, spent it on luxury items such as a $12,000 gown and restaurant bills, and concealed the transactions through intermediaries.
One of those intermediaries, Florencio “Lencho” Rendon, a longtime associate of Cuellar, has already pleaded guilty to money laundering. So has Colin Strother, Cuellar’s former chief of staff and campaign manager, who prosecutors say funneled monthly payments to Cuellar’s wife.
What followed, federal prosecutors now allege, was a years-long scheme involving foreign influence, money laundering, and one of the most serious indictments ever brought against a sitting member of Congress.
According to a federal indictment unsealed last week, Cuellar and his wife accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from two foreign entities: Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company, SOCAR, and Mexico’s Banco Azteca.
Prosecutors allege that Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, Texas, used his office to advance the interests of these entities in exchange for payments disguised as consulting fees to shell companies owned by his wife.
The indictment accuses Cuellar of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government—a rare charge previously brought against Sen. Bob Menendez in 2023 for working on behalf of Egypt.
The Cuellars allegedly funneled money through front companies, spent it on luxury items such as a $12,000 gown and restaurant bills, and concealed the transactions through intermediaries.
One of those intermediaries, Florencio “Lencho” Rendon, a longtime associate of Cuellar, has already pleaded guilty to money laundering. So has Colin Strother, Cuellar’s former chief of staff and campaign manager, who prosecutors say funneled monthly payments to Cuellar’s wife.
Prosecutors claim the payments began in 2014, shortly after Cuellar’s trip to Azerbaijan. In text messages and emails, Cuellar allegedly communicated directly with Elin Suleymanov, then Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the U.S., discussing contracts, payments, and legislation favorable to the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2025 02:18 ||
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#1
Confiscate all assets, then slap a 10 year sentence on each, for each illegal action. PLUS MEGA $$ Fine or restrict the offending country and / or business.
#7
The president of Azerbaijan was in the White House for a treaty signing. You wonder what Trump and America gets out of these negotiations. Now you know.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/10/2025 9:54 Comments ||
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#8
He did it wrong. They're supposed to send the money to PACs and the PACs give it as campaign contributions. He then launders the money through his campaign and gets the money kicked back.
Amateur.
Read the whole thing.
[X] The election of Donald Trump in November 2016 was, for the entrenched political class, a thunderclap. It was not supposed to happen. The experts, the pollsters, the seasoned operatives had assured the country that Hillary Clinton’s victory was inevitable. Yet by the morning of November 9, the White House was preparing to receive a president unlike any in modern history: a political outsider with no government experience, an instinctive distrust of Washington, and a willingness to discard its conventions. For some in the outgoing administration and the permanent bureaucracy, this was not merely a surprise. It was a crisis to be managed, or better yet, undone.
That undoing began in earnest just four months into Trump’s presidency, when Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, with the approval of FBI Counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap and General Counsel James Baker, authorized a criminal investigation into the sitting president of the United States. This probe did not arise from fresh evidence of presidential misconduct. It rested on the same thin reeds that had underpinned the Russia collusion narrative since mid-2016: opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign, laundered through the Steele dossier, and presented as intelligence. It was a case study in how partisan disinformation can metastasize into official action when it finds a willing audience inside the government.
To understand how extraordinary this was, one must appreciate the context. Intelligence reports later declassified in the Durham Annex revealed that, as early as March 2016, the Clinton campaign had hatched a plan to tie Trump to Russian operatives, not as a matter of national security, but as an electoral tactic. These plans were known to senior Obama administration officials, including John Brennan, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe, before the election. Yet when Trump won, the machinery they had assembled did not wind down. It shifted purpose: from preventing his election to destabilizing his presidency.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
I am tired of reading what he or she or they did.
I want to see a lot of arrests and convictions.
Otherwise, move on from this constant made for MSM drama and deflection.
NOW! Back to Epstein names and promised arrests issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
A Christian preacher at an LGBTQ festival????
Was the preacher speaking out against, or was he there supporting Homosexuals, which is in conflict with the Bible?
#3
That should make for a nice campaign ad for whoever runs against Hizzoner in the next election.
From the city of Arlington web page: As Mayor, he serves on the boards of the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, Gene and Jerry Jones Family Arlington Youth Foundation, National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation, Texas Municipal League, North Texas Commission, Tarrant County Workforce Governing Board, Downtown Arlington Management Corporation and as a member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments' Regional Transportation Council and the Tarrant Regional Transportation Council.
Serving on boards is a nice way to pick up a little extra cash. Being on 9 different boards, it is a wonder he has any time left to do mayor stuff.
The Mayor Jim Ross, who has been mayor of the Texas city since 2021, was seen in the footage from Vice in 2018 berating a demonstrator at the Southern Decadence festival in New Orleans, an LGBT event held annually over Labor Day weekend.
The Preacher Israel, who died in 2023, was known for showing up to pride events with his supporters and holding anti-gay signs.
#10
I think more Christians should show up at these events. Surrounded by cameras. when the filthy rats strike out, they get viral videos published like this.
It was first publicized in Rules for Radicals: "their reaction is your action."
You goad the enemy into attacking and then play the victim.
I'm glad someone out there had learned from the last several decades of ass-kicking administered by the Left.
#11
Another rule: "Force the bastards to follow their own rules."
The book was written to help overthrow our government and set up a communist dictatorship, but good advice is good advice.
#12
Jesus confronted sinners at the Temple but He didn’t do a lot of that. Probably best to come dressed in Tivek if you plan to protest around that mayor. He seems either possessed or unusually horney.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/10/2025 12:40 Comments ||
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#13
Honestly, using a blow horn in that method is assault.
#16
When asking yourself "What would Jesus do?", it is important to remember that overturning tables and chasing people with whips is not out of the question.
Democrat Jasmine Crockett responds to reported claims from her own staff that she is a "boss from hell," saying that people are "hating" on her because she's a young Black woman.
Let me understand this logic.
Here we have a BLACK Female politician that is proud to be a DEMOCRAT. A member of the very political party that started, owned and supported the KKK. The party that fought to defend slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, lynchings, 1 parent families, voter plantations and other racist deeds. A party that allowed open borders, which replaced the Black Population as the minority with 12+ million lighter skin Latino's.
But because she is a traitor to her race and making $$$ hand over fist. She has no problem supporting, and being a Anti-USA / Anti-MAGA Democrat?
#6
It's always projection - some of which is totally incomprehensible to them as they've been kept ignorant about their party's own history. I blame the GOPe for that. They never understood that the Donks consider politics just an extension of war. Maybe with the MAGA people the Trunks will start shoving it back in their faces.
#9
I love watching Dem heads explode when forced to face reality that they are the KKK.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/10/2025 18:14 Comments ||
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#10
You want exploding heads? Try telling people that the Nazis were socialists. It's right there in the name, fer crissakes! National Socialist German Workers' Party.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
