A federal judge has slapped down the Trump administration’s criminal charges against a wrongfully deported Maryland dad as “vindictive prosecution.”
District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., an Obama appointee, tore into Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the Justice Department’s dogged pursuit of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wrongful removal to El Salvador in March last year became a flashpoint in the administration’s deportation blitz.
The government brought human smuggling charges against the 30-year-old father of three after it was forced by the Supreme Court to facilitate his return to the U.S. Abrego Garcia contested the criminal charges, which stemmed from a November 2022 traffic stop that was ultimately closed, “for vindictive and selective prosecution.”
Crenshaw came out swinging in a 32-page opinion that needled Blanche, his subordinate Aakash Singh, and the DHS investigative unit Homeland Security Investigations, accusing them of reopening a probe into Abrego Garcia only after he challenged his removal to El Salvador.
“Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second,” he began. “That is the situation here.”
“The evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” the Tennessee-based judge went on. “The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution.”
Crenshaw said the timing of the HSI’s decision to reopen the investigation into the November 2022 traffic stop, coupled with Blanche’s public statements, “taints the investigation with a vindictive motive.”
Just a day after Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. last June, Blanche spoke to Fox News about the case.
“We had a judge in Maryland tell us that ‘Oh, no, there is not any evidence that he is a member of MS-13, you had no right to deport him,’” he told Laura Ingraham. “And so what should we do at the Department of Justice when a judge is accusing us of doing something wrong? We have an obligation to everybody, including you, to investigate it and that’s exactly what we did.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Abrego Garcia’s criminal defense attorneys hailed the Friday ruling.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department,” they said in a statement. “We are so pleased that he is a free man.”
