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WASHINGTON — Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, whose Laredo dwelling and marketing campaign headquarters have been searched by FBI brokers this week, has ties to a Houston-based businessman who was convicted of mendacity to Congress about Azerbaijan’s function in funding a 2013 journey to the western Asian nation for 10 lawmakers, federal data present.
Kemal Oksuz, who pleaded responsible in that case, was a daily marketing campaign donor to Cuellar and different Texas politicians and in 2015 enlisted Cuellar, a Democrat representing South Texas, to ascertain a partnership between Texas A&M Worldwide College and the Meeting of the Pals of Azerbaijan, one of many nonprofits used to assist funnel cash for that journey.
“My due to Congressman Cuellar for his taking part in a really instrumental function for this affiliation,” Oksuz stated in an announcement on the time.
It’s unclear why the FBI is investigating Cuellar now, however ABC Information reported it’s a part of a wide-ranging federal probe regarding the previous Soviet state and several other U.S. businessmen. Cuellar and his spouse had been issued subpoenas for data together with data associated to Oksuz and the State Oil Firm of Azerbaijan Republic, ABC reported Friday.
Oksuz pleaded responsible in 2018 to illegally funneling cash for congressional journey from the State Oil Firm of Azerbaijan Republic, or SOCAR, by his Houston-based nonprofits, which included the Turquoise Council of People and Eurasians.
4 members of the Texas delegation have been on the Might 2013 journey to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. Cuellar was not one among them.
Cuellar did make a journey to Baku funded by the Turquoise Council of People and Eurasians 4 months earlier, in January 2013, congressional journey data present. The group paid greater than $25,000 for an eight-day journey by Cuellar and his spouse, which included a cease in Istanbul, data present.
Cuellar — who has served as co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus and has met with Azerbaijani officers, together with ambassador Elin Suleymanov — didn’t reply to a request for remark Friday; Oksuz couldn’t be reached for remark.
Cuellar’s title didn’t floor in media protection of the Oksuz case. No members of Congress have been charged. Oksuz was sentenced to 2 years’ probation and ordered to pay a $20,000 positive.
The Texas members of Congress who attended the Baku convention — together with Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and now-retired Republican Congressman Ted Poe — have stated they believed their journeys have been legally funded by the nonprofits.
Oksuz was a daily marketing campaign contributor to members of the Texas delegation, in accordance with the nonpartisan Middle for Public Integrity. He gave Cuellar donations of $1,000 in 2012 and $2,500 in 2015.
The 2015 settlement between A&M and the Meeting of the Pals of Azerbaijan, orchestrated by Cuellar and Oksuz, included collaboration on analysis, conferences, and college and scholar exchanges associated to the worldwide oil and fuel trade, in accordance with an announcement on the time.
A program below the settlement, which resulted in 2019, despatched college and college students from Laredo to Azerbaijan to attend the Baku Vitality Summer time College, an annual two-week certificates program.
“I’m happy to see the college staying true to its worldwide dedication by bringing collectively world-renowned scholarship and academia as a way to look at and acquire a greater understanding of the petroleum trade worldwide,” Cuellar stated in 2015. “South Texas has been blessed with an oil and fuel growth, and it’s important that we offer a framework for our college students on this essential and rising trade.”
As for the present FBI probe that led to the search at his dwelling and marketing campaign workplace, Cuellar’s workplace issued an announcement saying he “will totally cooperate.”
“He’s dedicated to making sure that justice and the legislation are upheld,” the assertion stated.
Azerbaijan a key ally for Texas oil
Azerbaijan and its oil and pure fuel fields have been of eager curiosity to the U.S. authorities and the nation’s oil and fuel trade for the reason that breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The previous Soviet state has been an essential U.S. ally in a unstable area and a key supply of pure fuel for U.S. allies in Europe, decreasing the continent’s dependence on Russia’s pure fuel fields.
Over the previous decade, Azerbaijan and different fuel producers across the Caspian Sea have been working to broaden pipeline capability into Europe. The USA has been a vital supporter of the challenge, often known as the Southern Fuel Hall, stated Jim Krane, a fellow at Rice College’s Baker Institute.
“Azerbaijan has been in want of U.S. diplomatic assist to get it finished,” he stated. “The principle promoting level is that it’s non-Russian fuel that’s going to the EU through the Caucasus and Turkey, crossing worldwide borders alongside the way in which.”
Getting Azerbaijan’s oil and fuel to market is important not just for the State Oil Firm of Azerbaijan Republic but in addition for the Western oil corporations that function there.
Texas-based Exxon Mobil is part of a consortium that produces oil and fuel from fields off the coast of Azerbaijan.
Exxon-Mobil owns a bit of an oil pipeline operating to the Mediterranean. BP, which maintains its U.S. headquarters in Houston, operates the Shah Deniz, one of many world’s largest pure fuel fields, positioned within the South Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan.
BP additionally owns a controlling curiosity within the South Caucasus Pipeline Co. The pipeline was constructed to export Shah Deniz fuel from Azerbaijan to Georgia and Turkey. It begins at a terminal close to Baku.
The U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan has notably benefited Texas, which is the second-largest importer to Azerbaijan amongst U.S. states, in accordance with the analysis group Observatory of Financial Complexity.
As its function in European power safety grows, so has Azerbaijan’s energy within the Caspian area.
In 2020, Azerbaijani troops reclaimed territory held by Armenian forces since a struggle between the 2 nations within the Nineties. President Ilham Aliyev known as it a “historic victory.”
“Azerbaijan appears to have discovered the precise mixture and mastered the fragile diplomatic balancing act required to get the strains constructed and linked whereas reclaiming long-lost territory,” Krane stated. “It’s been spectacular.”
Cuellar is one among no less than seven members of the Texas delegation who’ve been listed as members of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. Others embrace Jackson Lee and U.S. Reps. Al Inexperienced, D-Houston; Filemón Vela, D-Brownsville; Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas; Marc Veasey, D-Fort Price; and Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, in accordance with Legistorm, an organization that follows Congress.
Eric Dexheimer contributed reporting from Austin.
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