Video provided to Breitbart News appears to show a City of Escobares worker installing campaign signs for Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) in Starr County with a marked Public Works truck in the foreground, raising questions about the use of municipal resources for political activity.
The footage shows a worker installing Cuellar campaign signs next to the marked city vehicle.
Neither the City of Escobares nor Cuellar’s campaign responded to Breitbart News’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Texas law prohibits municipal employees from knowingly using public funds or other city resources to distribute political advertising. The Texas Ethics Commission states that public resources include government equipment as well as employees’ paid work time. A violation of Election Code §255.003 is a Class A misdemeanor.
Texas Ethics Commission Advisory Opinion No. 550 further addresses the use of government resources for campaign activity, stating that using “government resources for an individual public servant’s private campaign purposes would be a misuse.”
The footage comes as members of Cuellar’s family have separately faced scrutiny over alleged uses of government resources and taxpayer-funded public positions.
NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez told Breitbart News, “Self-serving Henry Cuellar has never viewed government as public service. To him, public office is the Cuellar family business, government workers are campaign staff, and taxpayers are the suckers footing the bill. Corruption is not a scandal to the Cuellars. It is their business model,” Martinez said.
Cuellar’s brother, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar (D), is under federal indictment alongside Assistant Chief Deputy Alejandro Gutierrez in an alleged scheme to misappropriate county resources between 2020 and 2022. Prosecutors allege Cuellar, Gutierrez, and former Assistant Chief Deputy Ricardo Rodriguez used sheriff’s office employees, equipment, and supplies to operate Disinfect Pro Master, a private disinfecting business formed in April 2020 that had no employees or supplies of its own.
Court documents say the company secured a $500,000 contract with the United Independent School District and operated almost entirely with county personnel and resources, with Cuellar, Gutierrez, and Rodriguez each receiving approximately $175,000. Federal authorities searched Cuellar’s office and the school district office in June 2023 in connection with the investigation. Rodriguez later pleaded guilty, while Cuellar and Gutierrez face up to 10 years in prison if convicted; Martin Cuellar also faces a money laundering charge carrying an additional potential 10-year sentence.
Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were indicted in May 2024 on charges alleging they accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an energy company controlled by the government of Azerbaijan and a bank based in Mexico City. Prosecutors alleged the payments were laundered through sham consulting contracts and that Cuellar used his position in Congress to advance the interests of the two foreign entities, including by influencing U.S. foreign policy and pressuring executive branch officials.
The indictment came more than two years after federal agents searched Cuellar’s home in Laredo, Texas in connection with an investigation involving Azerbaijan. Cuellar denied wrongdoing, saying that he and his wife were innocent and that everything he had done in Congress was intended to serve South Texas.
A separate Breitbart News report on the indictment stated that prosecutors alleged Henry and Imelda Cuellar accepted at least $598,000 from the Azerbaijan-controlled oil company and Mexican bank between December 2014 and November 2021. The indictment alleged that Imelda Cuellar performed little or no legitimate work under consulting arrangements used to funnel the payments and that Henry Cuellar agreed in return to take official actions benefiting the foreign entities, including influencing legislation and U.S. policy toward Azerbaijan and federal financial regulation affecting the Mexican bank.
The Cuellars each faced 14 counts ranging from bribery and conspiracy to money laundering and acting as an agent of a foreign principal. Cuellar maintained that he and his wife were innocent, said he had sought legal guidance before acting, and said prosecutors declined a request from his legal team to discuss their side of the case.
Cuellar’s campaign also spent a substantial share of its funds on legal services during the 2024 cycle. Of nearly $1.6 million in campaign funds spent, roughly $784,900 went to legal services, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records cited by Breitbart News. FEC records showed nearly $690,000 in payments to Clifford Chance LLP, which was reportedly representing Cuellar, more than $46,900 to Perkins Coie LLP, and additional payments to Mololamken LLP.
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