If it's not Republicans getting booted from Congress for making up entire resumes or making up conspiracies, it's Democrats being censured for pulling fire alarms or being accused of taking bribes. No wonder Congress' poll numbers are in the tank.

The latest ethics scandal in Washington comes to us courtesy of Texas. A Lone Star State congressman, a Democrat named Henry Cuellar, and his wife have been indicted on charges similar to those made against New Jersey's Bob Menendez and his wife.

Representative Cuellar and his wife have been charged with taking nearly $600,000 from two foreign entities--an Azerbaijani company and a Mexican bank.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges the crimes occurred from 2014 to 2021. The money was allegedly laundered through a series of front companies and middlemen all in an effort to have Representative Cuellar influence the outcomes of legislation to the parties doing the bribing.

The congressman released a statement which said, "everything I have done in Congress has been to serve the people of South Texas," and "I want to be clear that both my wife and I are innocent of these allegations. Before I took action, I sought legal counsel from the House Ethics Committee, who gave me more than one written opinion, along with an additional opinion from a national law firm."

It might surprise some that many of his strongest critics are not Republicans, but the left-ish side of the Democratic Party. He's opposed to abortion and has pulled together a number of like-minded Democrats to push for stronger border security.

Nevertheless, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) believes he's the only Democrat who can win in the heavily Hispanic but conservative Rio Grande Valley district in South Texas. He's proven them right, and if he's re-elected in November, it will mark his 11th term in Congress.

Federal disclosures revealed that Representative Cuellar traveled to Azerbaijan in 2013, and two years later a Texas university announced an agreement called the Assembly of Friends of Azerbaijan, according to The Independent. At one time, he was also chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. Wait, there was one?

Everyone accused should have his day in court. But preferably you'd like to avoid court in the first place.

Time will tell if this is just smoke, or smoke with a fire. Whether voters of South Texas want to fire Rep. Henry Cuellar is up to them.