Judge says top DOJ officials pushed to prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he fought deportation error
A newly unsealed court filing in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia suggests high-level officials in President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice made the case a “top priority” after he sued the government for mistakenly deporting him to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges that were brought against him after several courts ordered the government to bring him back to the United States from a brutal prison in his home country, a legal battle at the center of the president’s mass deportation efforts.
He is asking the judge to throw out the charges on grounds of “vindictive and selective prosecution,” arguing that the administration unlawfully punished him as part of an apparent smear campaign for “having the audacity to fight back.”
Government attorneys turned over documents that Abrego Garcia’s team had hoped to expose the decision-making behind the case, which involved an incident from three years ago.
Tennessee District Judge Waverly Crenshaw had previously found “some evidence” that the case was the product of vindictive prosecution, pointing to an apparent admission from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that the case was brought in an effort to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, which the judge said could be considered “direct evidence of vindictiveness.”
In a December 3 order that was unsealed Tuesday, Crenshaw went further, finding that the top federal prosecutor involved with the case may have brought charges in a “joint decision with others who may or may not have acted with an improper motivation.”
In early April, roughly two weeks after the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return after his “illegal” removal, a top official in Blanche’s office contacted several officials to talk about the Abrego Garcia case, including then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire.
That same day, McGuire received a file on Abrego Garcia from the Department of Homeland Security.
On April 30, DOJ official Aakash Singh called the case a “top priority,” according to emails shared with the court.
McGuire wrote that he did not receive “specific direction” from Blanche’s office to bring the case, but he “heard anecdotally” that Blanche and his deputy “would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later,” emails show.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who has pushed for Abrego Garcia’s release, said he “very much” believes the case is political.
The recently unsealed emails look like a “smoking gun against the administration,” he told CNN Tuesday.
A grand jury indicted Abrego Garcia on May 21, and he was abruptly returned to the United States in June to face allegations that he illegally moved other immigrants across the country.
ICE swiftly brought him back into custody after a judge released him from pretrial detention in his criminal case. He has since been allowed to stay out of federal detention in both his immigration and criminal cases and to live with his wife and U.S. citizen children while those legal challenges continue.
Last week, Crenshaw canceled a planned January trial and replaced it with an evidentiary hearing on Abrego Garcia’s argument that the case was unlawfully brought against him.
Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis has also ordered government officials to file a sworn declaration outlining whether the administration still plans to deport him and under what authority. Since his return to the United States, officials have tried to deport Abrego Garcia to at least six different countries, including the African nations of Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda.
He has accepted the Costa Rican government’s offer to deport to that country, but the Trump administration allegedly denied the request after Abrego Garcia refused to plead guilty.
