[ad_1]
Join The Temporary, our each day publication that retains readers up to the mark on probably the most important Texas information.
For every of the previous few years, college students at Texas A&M Worldwide College in Laredo have been introduced with a uncommon journey alternative: a two-week journey to Azerbaijan to review vitality, enterprise and coverage.
The excursions have been facilitated by native U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, who has touted the “huge alternative to strengthen South Texas’ relationship with Azerbaijan.”
It’s one of many many ways in which Cuellar has taken explicit curiosity within the oil-rich former Soviet republic. Cuellar has taken his personal journeys there and even co-chairs the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.
This month, these ties have generated new curiosity after Cuellar’s house and workplace in Laredo have been raided by the FBI. Authorities haven’t stated what they have been on the lookout for, and it’s unclear whether or not Cuellar is a goal of any investigation. However ABC Information reported the raid was a part of a federal grand jury probe. Subpoenas reviewed from the probe by ABC Information reportedly sought data from quite a few organizations with ties to Azerbaijan, along with three Texas-based firms with ties to Cuellar’s spouse, Imelda.
Cuellar launched a defiant assertion on Tuesday, and legislation enforcement has not charged him with any crimes.
“There may be an ongoing investigation that may present that there isn’t any wrongdoing on my half,” he stated on a video his marketing campaign launched.
“I delight myself on being your congressman and at all times doing issues actually, ethically and the precise method,” he added.
However the entire incident set off questions on why he has been so be desperate to advocate for Azerbaijan, an ex-Soviet nation with a troubled current historical past on points like corruption and human rights. Cuellar didn’t return a request for remark Wednesday and hasn’t addressed his relationship with Azerbaijan since final week’s raid.
Azerbaijan has had a turbulent historical past for the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It borders the Caspian Sea and is in any other case surrounded by Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Russia.
It’s predominantly Muslim, with an economic system primarily based on oil exports. However since gaining independence, it has a fame for corruption and dynastic management. The CIA World Factbook describes it as a spot the place “corruption stays a burden on the economic system, and Western observers and members of the nation’s political opposition have accused the federal government of authoritarianism, pointing to elections which might be neither free nor truthful, state management of the media, and the systematic abuse of human rights focusing on people and teams who’re perceived as threats to the administration.”
Azerbaijan has a uniquely aggressive official lobbying arm in Washington, in keeping with a dozen interviews with members of Congress and Capitol Hill aides. Some members merely put their title on a listing referred to as the “Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus,” however there may be hardly a extra devoted congressional advocate for the nation than Cuellar, who has been one of many caucus’ co-chairs.
In 2014, he and the Azerbaijani ambassador visited the College of the Incarnate Phrase in San Antonio collectively and Cuellar spoke of the “huge alternative to strengthen South Texas’ relationship with Azerbaijan.”
A 12 months earlier, he and his spouse, Imelda, traveled to Azerbaijan, at a value of practically $25,000. The journey was paid for by the Turquoise Council of People and Eurasians, a Texas-based nonprofit. For the following a number of years, Cuellar incessantly collaborated with Kemal Oksuz, the chief of the nonprofit.
A number of months later, a Cuellar staffer took a further journey to Azerbaijan that additionally included U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, and 9 different members. The journey was accepted by the Congressional Ethics Workplace, however The Washington Submit later reported the Azerbaijani authorities’s state oil firm secretly funded the junket. Jackson Lee and different members who went on that journey publicly acknowledged on the time that they have been misled and that the Home Ethics Committee signed off on the journey.
Oksuz was later charged with masking up the supply of the funding. He pleaded responsible to the costs in 2018, in keeping with the U.S. Division of Justice.
The federal government acknowledged on the time that Oksuz “falsely represented and authorized on required disclosure kinds that the Turquoise Council of People and Eurasions” had not accepted funding for the Congressional journey from any outdoors supply.
Oksuz and Cuellar additionally labored collectively on the Texas A&M Worldwide partnership.
However nowhere is Cuellar’s relationship extra formally acknowledged than in his place as co-chair of the caucus. The caucus is a small, bipartisan group inside which Texas has an outsized presence. There may be not a publicly obtainable official listing of members within the caucus, however third events have printed previous tallies of the caucus, and several other Texans confirmed they’re part of the group. It’s broadly perceived that the supply of those members’ curiosity is tied to the oil trade.
In or out of the caucus, Texans have demonstrated help for Azerbaijan in varied methods, together with authoring op-eds, giving ground speeches and touring to the nation.
U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, a Brownsville Democrat, took to the Home ground in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, part of Ukraine. He referred to as for bolstering former Soviet satellite tv for pc states within the face of Russian aggression. “With the volatility and strategic significance of this area, the U.S. should proceed to work with its allies equivalent to Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to make sure their sovereignty is protected, particularly in mild of Russia’s actions within the Crimean Peninsula,” he stated.
Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Weber of Friendswood concurred on the issues about Russian aggression towards former Soviet satellite tv for pc states.
“A wise vitality coverage is multi-pronged, and Azerbaijan is a part of that equation, particularly in relation to the dialogue on neutralizing Russia,” he wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Instances in 2015.
The spokesperson to U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Price, one other Democratic member, launched an announcement: “Rep. Veasey has been a supporter of facilitating peace and harmonized relations within the Caucasus area between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia and has additionally supported efforts to decrease tensions within the area by means of his place on” a U.S. fee that displays human rights abuses.
Equally, U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, joined the caucus “within the early 2000s, citing Azerbaijan’s significance as a geostrategic accomplice,” in keeping with her spokesperson.
One other Texan who surfaced on the lists is Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Inexperienced of Houston, who declined to remark for this story. In complete, there are roughly two dozen members of Congress within the caucus. It is a politically and geographically disparate group, with the one commonality that the members are mainstream members of the Republican and Democratic caucuses.
However not all Capitol Hill caucuses are equal in relevance.
As an illustration, the Congressional Black Caucus, probably the most decisive bloc in Home Democratic politics, meets recurrently and leverages its pursuits by working as an organized unit. Little or no occurs within the Democratic Social gathering with out that group’s signoff.
That’s not the case with the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. It’s considered one of tons of of causes rooted in points, hobbies, ethnic background or esoteric pursuits. Most of those teams by no means — or not often — meet, as is the case with the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.
As an illustration, there’s a Congressional Auto Care Caucus, a Bourbon Caucus and a Congressional Writers Caucus.
A number of the extra severe, foreign-policy-minded caucuses are comprised of members whose districts embody the nation in query’s expatriates. Or the members themselves may share an ethnic background with the nation.
Or, as is most frequently the case, a rustic like Azerbaijan hires a lobbyist to spherical up help, and people lobbyists goal members on related committees. On this case, the apparent members to recruit serve on committees that cope with international affairs.
Cuellar serves on just one committee, appropriations, which is the place members determine the place and how one can dole out federal cash. Inside that committee, he makes a speciality of funding homeland safety and the Pentagon and will sooner or later be the chair of a kind of subcommittees.
Nonetheless, a congressperson’s help for Azerbaijan can generate some backlash.
The nation and neighboring Armenia have been at warfare on and off for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties, and the Armenian foyer brings bipartisan firepower to Capitol Hill, with backing as assorted as that of Democratic U.S. Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi and outgoing Republican U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, each of California.
With sizzling tensions between the 2 nations, congressional help for a kind of communities is perceived as mutually unique to the opposite. Sensitivities are so delicate that Capitol Hill aides seeking to be a part of the lobbying occupation will think about whether or not nations like Azerbaijan are amongst a agency’s purchasers quite than defy their former bosses and their constituents.
The Armenian Council of America went as far as to launch an announcement amid the Cuellar raid aftermath calling on members to resign from the Azerbaijan caucus.
At this level, not one of the Texans within the Azerbaijan caucus have modified their minds.
Disclosure: Texas A&M Worldwide College has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.
[ad_2]
Source link
