Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the criminal indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, finding that he was the victim of “vindictive and selective prosecution.”
“In sum, the Government’s explanation gets the sequence backwards. Instead of investigating the November 2022 traffic stop to identify who was responsible for the human smuggling, Blanche started the investigation to implicate Abrego. He did so to justify the Executive Branch’s decision to remove him to El Salvador,” wrote Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Obama.
“The reopening of the closed HSI investigation is the source of the vindictiveness. Blanche’s public statements about the investigation and Singh’s involvement tie Main Justice to the reopened investigation and the indictment,” the judge added. “After the indictment became reality, the Government ignores McGuire’s testimony that Main Justice caused Abrego’s return to the United States, as the District of Maryland had long required. The Government’s rebuttal to the presumption of vindictiveness does not engage with that evidence.”
“The Court does not reach its conclusion lightly,” Crenshaw explained. “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.”
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the Trump administration could not re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Xinis wrote that officials made “speedy plans to re-detain him, in violation of certainly the spirit, if not the letter, of that decision.”
“Respondents have done nothing to show that Abrego Garcia’s continued detention in ICE custody is consistent with due process. Thus, he must remain on the stringent release conditions already imposed by ICE and in the Tennessee Criminal Matter,” the judge added.
