The judge presiding over the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Tennessee directed both sides Thursday to stop making public statements about the case after defense lawyers argued the government was depriving him of his right to a fair trial by making inflammatory comments.
Attorneys for Abrego — who was erroneously deported and later hit with human smuggling charges — had asked U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw to hand down the order, arguing the government had been routinely violating a local rule barring comments that could be prejudicial.
"For months, the government has made extensive and inflammatory extrajudicial comments about Mr. Abrego that are likely to prejudice his right to a fair trial. These comments continued unabated — if anything they ramped up — since his indictment in this District, making clear the government’s intent to engage in a 'trial by newspaper,'” the defense filing said.
The scope of the order was not immediately clear. Abrego's attorneys had asked that it encompass the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The judge granted the defense motion in a two-sentence ruling that said, “All counsel are expected to comply with the Local Rules of this Court.”
Attorneys for Abrego and representatives for DHS and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawyers contended the government has been trying to convict Abrego in the court of public opinion ever since it first acknowledged in another case that it had mistakenly sent him to a prison in El Salvador despite a court order barring the move.
"As Mr. Abrego’s plight captured national attention, officials occupying the highest positions of the United States government baselessly labeled him a 'gangbanger,' 'monster,' 'illegal predator,' 'illegal alien terrorist,' 'wife beater,' 'barbarian,' and 'human trafficker,'" the filing said, before it singled out top officials in the Trump administration.
"The Vice President, a Yale Law School graduate, went so far as to flatly lie about Mr. Abrego, calling him a 'convicted MS-13 gang member,' notwithstanding that Mr. Abrego in fact has never been convicted of any crime at all," it said.
On the day of Abrego's first appearance in the criminal case, "he was assailed in no fewer than twenty separate public statements from across the Executive Branch," the defense filing said, pointing to remarks from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The filing also noted that on the day Abrego was indicted, Attorney General Pam Bondi accused him of a number of crimes he hasn’t been charged with, including suggesting he was linked to a murder case.
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"Since the indictment was returned on May 21, DHS and DOJ officials have made countless statements asserting Mr. Abrego’s guilt without regard to the judicial process or the presumption of innocence," the filing said.
The filing also said some of the statements were "contaminated with irrelevant and false claims that the DOJ 'knows or reasonably should know are likely to be inadmissible as evidence in a trial or that would, if disclosed, create a substantial risk of prejudicing an impartial trial.'”
The attorneys asked the judge for an order directing both sides to comply with a local criminal rule that "precludes a lawyer who 'is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter either directly or indirectly' from 'mak[ing] an extrajudicial statement (other than a quotation from or reference to public records) that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by public communication."
The rule applies to “the law firm and government agencies or offices, and the partners and employees of such firms, government agencies or offices, with which the lawyer is associated,” the filing said.
The defense argued that the order was necessary "to protect the impartiality of the jury pool and the integrity of these proceedings" and that it should include DHS in addition to the Justice Department because DHS "is responsible for making some of the prejudicial statements in relation to this case."
The judge signed an order granting the defense's motion but did not elaborate on its scope.
Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has experience with gag orders. He launched numerous unsuccessful legal challenges to an order barring Donald Trump from trashing witnesses against him during his hush money trial last year.
