Newly released files in the case of wrongly-deported Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia indicate that the Justice Department has been misrepresenting Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s connection to the case for months, legal expert and American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick posted to X on Tuesday.
Abrego, who for years had a life and family in Maryland, was illegally removed to the infamous Salvadoran CECOT megaprison earlier this year, despite a judge’s order prohibiting his deportation to that specific country. After months of public protest, the administration finally repatriated him to the United States, but then immediately filed dubious gang-related charges against him. Abrego’s legal team is now seeking the dismissal of these charges on the basis of vindictive prosecution.
The Trump administration has argued the prosecution couldn’t be vindictive, because neither Blanche nor any of the higher-ups in more political roles has a hand in deciding to prosecute Abrego. But documents released on Tuesday by District Judge Waverly Crenshaw suggest this was not true, Reichlin-Melnick argued.
“Due to a redacting error in a defense brief, we already know that Crenshaw’s 12/3 ruling, still under seal, concluded that Blanche’s associate, Aakash Singh, played ‘a leading role’ in deciding to prosecute Abrego,” wrote Lawfare’s Roger Parloff on X. “In an effort to fend off Abrego’s vindictive prosecution claims, McGuire claimed he alone made the decision, and he was untainted by the vindictive motives attributable to Trump/Blanche. (Just like Halligan claiming that she, not Trump, decided to pursue Comey & James.) But after reviewing still non-public correspondence between Blanche’s office and McGuire, Crenshaw found otherwise.”
Crenshaw’s rulilng “might also shed light on why [former Nashville Assistant U.S. Attorney] Ben Schrader … quit rather than participate in the case,” wrote Parloff.
Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, had a blunt assessment of this new development.
“This story is another BIG problem for the Trump admin; in Abrego Garcia’s criminal case in Tennessee, evidence shows the DOJ seriously mislead the judge about the extent to which Deputy AG Blanche and his office were involved in filing the case, bolstering the case for dismissal,” wrote Reichlin-Melnick. “The US Attorney prosecuting Mr. Abrego claimed he had no political purpose in bringing the case, and made the decision all on his own. But emails disclosed to the defense made clear that Todd Blanche’s office was leading the charge from the beginning.”
“Winning a vindictive prosecution motion is a very hard thing to do,” Reichlin-Melnick concluded. “But in this case, the Trump admin keeps handing the defense more and more evidence of vindictiveness, and they’re not exactly making the judge sympathetic to them either.”
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