Earlier this month, federal prosecutors bestowed on Republicans what appeared like an election-year present: charging a senior Home Democrat in a aggressive district with accepting $600,000 in bribes and appearing as a overseas agent. For a celebration clinging to a threadbare majority within the Home, the indictment provided an apparent alternative for an America First assault. Consultant Henry Cuellar of Texas, who prosecutors say acted on behalf of a Mexican financial institution and the federal government of Azerbaijan, is now the second Democrat in latest months—after Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey—to be accused of doing the bidding of overseas pursuits.
But prior to now week, the GOP has been surprisingly quiet about Cuellar. Nobody within the celebration management has denounced him. Speaker Mike Johnson, warding off an try on his job from the far proper, actually might have used the distraction. However he hasn’t talked about Cuellar as soon as. Donald Trump even praised him, suggesting that President Joe Biden had despatched the FBI after “the Revered Democrat Congressman” as a result of Cuellar had criticized the administration’s dealing with of the U.S.-Mexico border. (Cuellar denies the fees.)
In interviews over the previous a number of days, strategists in each events posited theories as to why Republicans had been passing up a simple assault on Democrats. The preferred comes again to Trump: The GOP is fearful that calling out Cuellar will draw extra consideration to its chief’s authorized woes. However that speculation goes solely up to now. Trump’s trials might hardly take up extra consideration than they already do, and right this moment’s Republicans don’t sometimes draw back from being referred to as hypocrites. The extra troubling rationalization might need much less to do with the GOP’s self-interest than with the state of political corruption in America—and it means that lawmakers would possibly begin to abandon even the pretense of policing themselves.
The Republican response to Cuellar’s costs has fallen nicely wanting the deluge some Democrats anticipated. The Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee has despatched out emails pressuring Home Democrats to name on their colleague to resign, and a number of celebration operatives advised me that they might use the indictment to attempt to unseat him this fall. “There’s little question it is a gold mine,” Zack Roday, a Republican marketing consultant engaged on a lot of Home and Senate races this yr, advised me. However few Republicans have referred to as for Cuellar to be sanctioned. One in all them, sarcastically, is the GOP’s most notorious exile, former Consultant George Santos, the accused fraudster who was expelled from the Home in December. He desires his ex-colleagues to mete out the identical punishment to Cuellar.
Only one present member of Congress has referred to as on Cuellar to resign, and that was a Democrat: the previous presidential contender Dean Phillips of Minnesota. Cuellar has voluntarily given up his committee assignments whereas he fights the fees, however he’s mentioned he gained’t resign. Democratic leaders have stood by him as he prepares to run for an eleventh time period within the Home this fall.
On some degree, the GOP’s restraint is suitable, Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the good-government group Public Citizen, advised me. Like Menendez and any citizen charged with a criminal offense, Cuellar is entitled to a presumption of innocence reasonably than a partisan rush to judgment. (Santos represented a particular case; his expulsion was primarily based much less on federal costs than on a damning report by the Home Ethics Committee.)
Nonetheless, few folks I interviewed attributed Republicans’ reticence to a sudden outbreak of accountable governance. Certainly, the GOP’s response—or lack thereof—has been disquieting to ethics watchdogs. “The costs are extraordinarily critical,” Noah Bookbinder, the president of Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington (CREW), advised me. “It’s actually straightforward conduct to sentence when you might have an official who’s charged with engaged on behalf of overseas governments, notably for those who’re a celebration that has quite a lot of rhetoric about America First.” He famous that the Home voted to expel Santos despite the fact that his alleged wrongdoing didn’t implicate nationwide safety. “There’s just a little little bit of whiplash right here,” Bookbinder mentioned.
Republicans additionally trod flippantly after Menendez was charged final yr, however the causes had been extra obvious. Democrats deserted him nearly instantly, and Republicans would have gained little from Menendez’s resignation or expulsion, as a result of his substitute would have been appointed by the governor of his state—a Democrat. (Menendez, whose trial begins right this moment, has pleaded not responsible to the fees.)
Trump’s affect on the GOP’s response to Cuellar’s indictment is unmistakable. “General, the Republican Occasion is on pretty shaky floor on moral points given who the de facto chief of their celebration is,” Aaron Scherb, the senior director for legislative affairs on the good-government group Frequent Trigger, advised me. “I’m certain to some extent they’re fearful about being referred to as out for hypocrisy.” Traditionally, members of Congress have been cautious of policing corruption within the legislature—even amongst their opposition—for the same cause: worry that they’ll topic themselves to higher scrutiny. But, as Bookbinder identified, the previous president and his allies “have hardly ever been reluctant to accuse others of issues that he does himself.”
Bookbinder advised me that within the years since Trump’s election, the GOP’s retreat on ethics has gone past rhetoric. Advocates at CREW have discovered that Republican lawmakers have gotten extra reluctant to co-sponsor anti-corruption laws, even those that had prioritized the difficulty earlier than Trump grew to become president.
As a result of Trump stays a viable White Home contender regardless of his many indictments and moral breaches, Republicans might have concluded that voters merely don’t care all that a lot about corruption. What hasn’t labored on Trump, this pondering goes, gained’t work on Cuellar. If that logic prevails, Congress would lose any political incentive to carry itself accountable.
One other doable rationalization for Republicans’ silence is that Trump’s jeremiads towards the “weaponization” of the Justice Division have penetrated not simply the GOP voters however its officers as nicely. “We really do imagine the Justice Division is corrupt,” one high-ranking Republican marketing campaign strategist advised me, talking on the situation of anonymity to explain the celebration’s non-public pondering. The strategist mentioned that despite the fact that Cuellar is a Democrat, many Republicans don’t need to construct on the precedent the Home set by expelling Santos earlier than he had been convicted of a criminal offense. “Persons are nervous,” the strategist mentioned.
However Republicans might produce other causes for holding their fireplace on Cuellar. One of the conservative Democrats remaining within the Home, he continuously companions with Republicans on laws and infrequently votes with them on abortion and border coverage. “We like him!” the strategist advised me. “He’s our token Democrat. He’s good on the border.”
That may be probably the most charitable rationalization for why high Republicans have given Cuellar a move. However it isn’t the one which some ethics advocates are inclined to imagine. “It’s an indication of a wholesome democracy when corrupt conduct attracts penalties, and that begins with condemnation,” Bookbinder mentioned. And when politicians hesitate to name out corruption as a result of their leaders are additionally probably corrupt? “That’s an indication of a much less wholesome democracy.”