Judge said newly unsealed government documents show ‘some evidence’ of vindictive prosecution by DoJ
A newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmar Ábrego García reveals that high-level justice department officials pushed for his indictment, calling it a “top priority”, only after he was mistakenly deported and then ordered returned to the U.S.
Ábrego García, originally from El Salvador, has pleaded not guilty in federal court in Tennessee to charges of human smuggling. He is seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution is vindictive – a way for the Trump administration to punish him for the embarrassment of his mistaken deportation.
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 Ábrego García and his attorneys. That order was unsealed on Tuesday and sheds new light on the case.
Earlier, Crenshaw found that there was “some evidence” that the prosecution of Ábrego García 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 Ábrego García because he had won his wrongful deportation case.
