NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal prosecutor testified Thursday that he knew an indictment he brought against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year, would likely be viewed by the public as “vindictive” and “selective.”
“I knew we were maybe going to be in a courtroom like this,” McGuire told U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw about his decision to bring the human smuggling charges against Abrego. “I wanted to be the person in this chair, and not any of my colleagues.”
Attorneys for Abrego appeared before the federal judge in Tennessee on Thursday to argue that the human smuggling charges against him should be thrown out. Crenshaw did not did not rule from the bench and has asked to hear more on the issue.
Abrego and his attorneys claim that the criminal prosecution is vindictive, pushed by officials from President Donald Trump’s administration to punish him after they were forced to bring him back to the United States.
Robert McGuire, who was acting U.S. Attorney at the time Abrego was charged, said Thursday that he knew the decision to indict Abrego had consequences for him personally, as well as for the entire Middle District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“I was prepared for whatever was going to happen because I felt very confident that the defendant had committed a crime and I could prove it,” McGuire said.
While Abrego is a Salvadoran citizen, a court order from 2019 prevents him from being deported to that country. That’s because an immigration judge determined he faced danger in El Salvador from a gang that had threatened his family. Abrego, 30, immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager but has an American wife and child. He has lived and worked in Maryland for years under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
After he was deported to El Salvador last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration had to work to bring him back. He was eventually returned to the U.S. only to face criminal charges of human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty.
Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego after he was pulled over for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
Judge Crenshaw previously found some evidence that the prosecution against Abrego “may be vindictive.” The judge said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern.” He cited a statement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that seemed to suggest the Department of Justice charged Abrego because he won his wrongful-deportation case.
McGuire told the court Thursday he had heard anecdotally that Blanche and then-Principal Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wanted Abrego charged “sooner rather than later.”
“Don’t remember how I heard that,” McGuire said.
McGuire said that, while Blanche didn’t talk to him about charges specifically, Blanche did call him on June 6, the day Abrego was returned to the United States, to alert him to that development, and congratulate him on the indictment.
Abrego’s attorneys have been sparring with prosecutors for months over whether officials like Blanche would be required to testify at Thursday’s hearing and what emails Department of Justice officials would have to turn over to them. McGuire has argued that he alone made the decision to prosecute, so the motives of other officials were irrelevant.
Crenshaw reviewed many of the disputed documents. In an order that was unsealed in late December, he wrote, “Some of the documents suggest not only that McGuire was not a solitary decision-maker, but he in fact reported to others in DOJ and the decision to prosecute Abrego may have been a joint decision.”
