Nashville, Tenn. (AP) – High-ranking Justice Department officials pushed for his indictment only after a newly unsealed order in the criminal case against Kilmarn Abrego Garcia wrongfully deported him and then ordered him back to the United States.
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to human trafficking charges in federal court in Tennessee. He is seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution was vindictive — a way to punish President Donald Trump’s administration for his botched deportation scandal.
To support that argument, he has asked the government to return documents that reveal how the decision was made to prosecute in 2025 for an incident that occurred in 2022. On Dec. 3, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw filed an order under seal that compels the government to provide certain documents to Abrego Garcia and his attorney. That order was unsealed Tuesday and sheds new light on the case.
First, Crenshaw found that there was “some evidence” that Abrego Garcia’s prosecution may have been retaliatory. He specifically cited Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s statement on a Fox News show that the Justice Department appears to have charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful deportation case.
As of late December, Rob McGuire, the acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, argued that those statements were irrelevant because he had decided to prosecute alone, and he has no animosity against Abrego Garcia.
In the recently unsealed order, Crenshaw wrote, “Some documents suggest that McGuire was not the sole decision maker, but that he actually reported to others at DOJ and that the decision to prosecute Abrego may have been a joint decision.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee issued a statement saying, “The emails cited in Judge Crenshaw’s order, particularly Mr. McGuire’s email dated May 15, 2025, confirm that the final decision on whether to prosecute was made by career prosecutors based on facts, evidence, and the Office of the Deputy General Counsel. High-profile cases are both necessary and routine.”
According to Crenshaw’s order, the email referred to McGuire’s staff said Blanche “wants to charge Garcia as soon as possible.”
The human trafficking charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and state troopers discussed the possibility of human trafficking among themselves. However, he was finally allowed to leave only with a warning. The case was turned over to a Homeland Security investigation, but no attempt has been made to charge him as of April 2025, according to court records.
The order does not give much detail about what is in the documents turned over to Abrego Garcia, but it does show that Akash Singh, who worked under Blanche in the deputy attorney general’s office, contacted McGuire about Abrego Garcia’s case on April 27, the same day McGuire received the case file from Homeland Security Investments. Several days later, the US Supreme Court ruled in Abrego Garcia’s favor on April 10.
On April 30, Singh told McGuire in an email that the prosecution was a “high priority” for the deputy attorney general’s office, according to the order. Singh and McGuire continued to discuss the prosecution. On May 18, Singh wrote to McGuire and others to hold the draft indictment until they received “clearance” to file it. “The implication is that the ‘clearance’ will come from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General,” Crenshaw writes.
The hearing on the motion to dismiss the case based on retaliatory charges is scheduled for January 28.
