Rep. Cuellar Indictment Survives Speech or Debate Clause Claim

US Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) doesn’t have immunity against allegations he accepted around $600,000 bribes to advance policy for a Mexican bank and an Azerbaijani oil company, a Houston federal judge said.

Cuellar claimed the allegations against him were so intertwined with legislative acts that the indictment violated the US Constitution’s speech or debate clause. But the only potentially problematic allegations in the indictment are “an insubstantial part of the government’s case,” Southern District of Texas Judge Lee H. Rosenthal said Friday.

The government doesn’t have to rely on the conduct Cuellar claims is impermissible to make a prima facie ...