Henry Cuellar aide's salary soared after role in alleged bribery scheme, records show | San Antonio

A top aide to Rep. Henry Cuellar saw his salary increase significantly after he began acting as a conduit for alleged Mexican bribes, according to a review of campaign finance and congressional spending.

Colin Strother — a longtime Texas political consultant and close confidant of the Texas Democrat — received more than $25,000 from Cuellar's taxpayer-funded congressional spending budget in 2016 and 2017, according to spending records. Three people familiar with the House staff do not recall Strother doing any substantial work for the office or holding any job title during that time.

“It’s common for congressional offices to have outside advisers who step in but aren’t on staff,” one source said. “I didn’t know he was getting paid at the time.”

These outside advisers are often paid from campaign accounts rather than taxpayer-funded congressional budgets. At that time, Strother was paid separately by Cuellar's political campaign. Strother's salary from Cuellar's political campaign has also increased steadily: from $2,000 in the 2014 election cycle to around $20,000 in the 2016 cycle, to more than $34,000 in 2018, and climbing again to more than $65,000 during the 2020 campaign.

Strother pleaded guilty to helping funnel money from a Mexican bank to Cuellar through a complex financial arrangement designed to conceal the source of the funding — an arrangement that the Justice Department says began in 2016. He is cooperating with the federal investigation into his former boss. . Cuellar has pleaded not guilty to a series of serious federal corruption, money laundering and foreign influence charges.

Strother, who runs his own consulting firm in a small town outside Austin, began working for the longtime congressman when he first ran for Congress in 2003. FEC records from the 2003-2004 cycle show that Cuellar's campaign paid Strother a salary, and in 2005 he became Cuellar's chief of staff.

He and Cuellar were close, sources said. One described him as “the Cuellar whisperer.”

“But something didn’t seem right,” the source added.

After that first stint, he moved in and out of the office in fits and starts, serving in various advisory roles. FEC records show he remained an advisor to Cuellar and was paid during every election cycle from 2004 to 2022 through Cuellar's campaign account. But Strother's time in office in 2016 and 2017 surprised three sources close to the office.

Between December 2016 and November 2017, Strother received more than $26,000 – holding various titles such as “temporary employee,” “part-time employee,” “senior health attorney” and “special projects coordinator.” Two sources with knowledge of the internal workings of the office said they did not believe Strother's work would have qualified for an office salary. Unlike campaign work, which is funded by political donations, lawmakers receive a taxpayer-funded stipend to hire legislative staff.

A source said Strother would “occasionally” provide advice, but “nothing consistent.”

Another source recalls that Strother was often involved in the office, but was also surprised to be paid.

“He's the kind of guy who would kind of do what a consultant does, which is he doesn't do any actual work, and then he'd just give his opinion and call it good,” they declared. “That still doesn’t fix things.”

Lawyers representing Cuéllar and Strother did not respond to NOTUS' request for comment.

The indictment alleges that in March 2016, Imelda Cuellar, Henry Cuellar's wife, began sending Strother falsified invoices for a fake contract. In December 2016, Strother was hired as a “political advisor” and paid $4,000.

The indictment says money was regularly paid to Strother by other co-conspirators until 2017, most of which he passed on to the Cuellars. After that, the DOJ listed only two specified payments in 2018 and one in 2019 that were made to Strother. He was last paid by Cuellar's office in November 2017, although he continued to receive money from the congressman's campaign account.

The House Ethics Committee announced Wednesday that it would investigate the congressman on the same grounds.

The committee said it would “determine whether Rep. Cuellar solicited or accepted bribes, gratuities, or improper gifts; acted as a foreign agent; violated federal money laundering laws; abused his official position for personal gain; and/or made false statements or omissions in public statements filed with the House,” in its announcement of the investigation.

“I respect the work of the House Ethics Committee,” Cuellar said in a statement. according to NBC News. “As I said on May 3, I am innocent of these allegations, and everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas.”

Casey Murray, a NOTUS reporter and member of the Allbritton Journalism Institute, reported from the ground in Texas. NOTUS journalist Byron Tau reported from Washington, D.C.

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