<\/p>\n
A newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmar \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda<\/a> reveals that high-level justice department officials pushed for his indictment, calling it a \u201ctop priority\u201d, only after he was mistakenly deported and then ordered returned to the U.S.<\/p>\n \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda, originally from El Salvador, has pleaded not guilty in federal court in Tennessee<\/a> to charges of human smuggling. He is seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution is vindictive \u2013 a way for the Trump administration<\/a> to punish him for the embarrassment of his mistaken deportation.<\/p>\n To support that argument, he has asked the government to turn over documents that reveal how the decision was made to prosecute him in 2025 for an incident that occurred in 2022. On 3 December, US district judge Waverly Crenshaw filed an order under seal that compelled the government to provide some documents to \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda and his attorneys. That order was unsealed on Tuesday and sheds new light on the case.<\/p>\n Earlier, Crenshaw found that there was \u201csome evidence\u201d that the prosecution of \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda could be vindictive. He specifically cited a statement by the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, on a Fox News program that seemed to suggest that the Department of Justice charged \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda because he had won his wrongful deportation case.<\/p>\n Rob McGuire, who was the acting US attorney for the middle district of Tennessee until late December, argued that those statements were irrelevant because he alone made the decision to prosecute, and he has no animus against \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda.<\/p>\n In the newly unsealed order, Crenshaw writes: \u201cSome of the documents suggest not only that McGuire was not a solitary decision-maker, but he in fact reported to others in [the justice department] and the decision to prosecute Abrego may have been a joint decision.\u201d<\/p>\n The US attorney\u2019s office for the middle district of Tennessee released a statement saying: \u201cThe emails cited in Judge Crenshaw\u2019s order, specifically Mr McGuire\u2019s email on May 15, 2025, confirm that the ultimate decision on whether to prosecute was made by career prosecutors based on the facts, evidence, and established [justice department] practice. Communications with the Deputy Attorney General\u2019s Office about a high-profile case are both required and routine.\u201d<\/p>\n The email referenced was from McGuire to his staff stating that Blanche \u201cwould like Garcia charged sooner rather than later\u201d, according to Crenshaw\u2019s order.<\/p>\n The human-smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee during which \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda was pulled over for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and state troopers discussed the possibility of human smuggling among themselves. However, he was ultimately allowed to leave with only a warning. The case was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations, but there is no record of any effort to charge him until April 2025, according to court records.<\/p>\n The order does not give much detail on what is in the documents that were turned over to \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda, but it shows that Aakash Singh, who works under Blanche in the office of the deputy attorney general, contacted McGuire about \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda\u2019s case on 27 April, the same day that McGuire received a file on the case from Homeland Security Investigations. That was several days after the US supreme court ruled in \u00c1brego Garc\u00eda\u2019s favor on 10 April.<\/p>\n On 30 April, Singh said in an email to McGuire that the prosecution was a \u201ctop priority\u201d for the deputy attorney general\u2019s office, according to the order. Singh and McGuire continued to communicate about the prosecution. On 18 May, Singh wrote to McGuire and others to hold the draft indictment until they got \u201cclearance\u201d to file it. \u201cThe implication is that \u2018clearance\u2019 would come from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,\u201d Crenshaw writes.<\/p>\n A hearing on the motion to dismiss the case on the basis of vindictive prosecution is scheduled for 28 January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Documents #suggest #Kilmar #\u00c1brego #Garc\u00eda #retaliated #wrongful #deportation #Kilmar #\u00c1brego #Garc\u00eda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A newly unsealed order in the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}