Embattled Rep. Vicente Gonzalez Wins Party’s Primary in Friendlier Democrat Congressional District

Embattled Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) handily won his party’s nomination in the Democrat primary for Texas’s 34th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 10:37 p.m. ET.

Gonzalez announced in October that he would run in Texas’s 34th Congressional District rather than his current 15th District after nearly losing against Republican Monica De La Cruz in the 2020 election, only being able to secure 50.5 percent of the vote to the Republican’s 47.6 percent — about a 6,000 vote difference.

However, Gonzalez claimed that his decision to switch congressional seats was made after Texas adopted the new redistricted maps, which made him more vulnerable in his current seat versus running for the seat currently held by a retiring Democrat, Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX), that was friendlier to Democrats. Nevertheless, earlier this year, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics moved the new seat Gonzalez is running in from a “Safe Democratic” district to a “Likely Democratic” district.

Despite all of this, Gonzalez, throughout 2021, faced scandals leaving some unanswered questions.

Breitbart News exclusively reported in March 2021 that the congressman provided disclosure statements for 2017, 2018, and 2019 on holdings with the Bank of China — which fully acknowledges itself as a “wholly state-owned commercial bank” and has been since the mid-1990s — between $100,001 and $250,000. It also revealed that he was getting interest from the bank totaling between $2,501 and $5,000 each year.

Nonetheless, not only did the money with the Bank of China raise questions, but the amount of interest the congressman was receiving at the time did as well. Gonzalez reportedly had between $250,001 and $500,000 in at least two other banks, in which he received no interest in one and collected only between $201 and $1,000 in interest in the other.

At the time, Gonzalez refused to do any interview with Breitbart News after multiple requests and his local news stations — which raised many questions about the congressman from his constituents.

However, after the reports of the congressman having money with the “state-owned commercial bank” of China, Gonzalez closed his accounts. News 4 San Antonio reported, “[Gonzalez’s] press secretary, Jason Johnson, told News 4 San Antonio that the Bank of China is insured and operating under U.S. laws. Johnson also told the News 4 San Antonio, the congressman has closed that account.”

In June 2021, Breitbart News also unearthed newspaper reports and court documents from the early 2000s showing Gonzalez allegedly made “demeaning statements” about the local police that reportedly started a brawl with a municipal court judge and the then-mayor of Donna, Texas.

Despite the well-documented court filed and newspaper articles, Johnson from the congressman’s office told Breitbart News that “this is completely false” and would not specify further what he was referring to as “false.”

Gonzalez also voted in March to “defund the police.” The congressman voted to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 with House Democrats on an almost party-line vote of 220-212. Republicans described the act as a plan that would engage in “defunding the police.”

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) nonpartisan analysis of the bill found it would hurt more than 18,000 police departments around the country. “More than 18,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide would be affected by the bill’s requirements,” the CBO said in a letter to top congressional Republicans on the matter.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.