Attorneys for Rep. Henry Cuellar asked a federal court to throw out last year’s federal indictment against the Texas Democrat, arguing it violates the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
Cuellar’s legal team, in a filing Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, argued the indictment contains at least 16 “glaring violations” of the clause, which protects lawmaker speech but is often used by congressional politicians as a defense in corruption cases.
The indictment accused the Texas Democrat and his wife of taking about $600,000 in bribes from the government of Azerbaijan and a foreign bank headquartered in Mexico City.
