A federal judge has handed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department a significant setback in one of the Trump administration’s most controversial immigration cases.
Newly unsealed court filings indicate that senior DOJ officials pursued an indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia only after the government’s wrongful deportation of him to El Salvador became a national embarrassment.
The case has been central to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and it also draws questions about whether the administration is using federal prosecution as retaliation.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, was wrongly deported and held at CECOT in El Salvador. He was then ordered back to the U.S. following court rulings, including a Supreme Court decision that criticized the deportation. It was only after these legal defeats that the DOJ filed human smuggling charges related to a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. His lawyers argue this sequence is a clear example of vindictive prosecution.
This week, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw signaled that top officials in Washington might have collaborated with prosecutors in Tennessee on the decision to charge Abrego Garcia. This contradicts earlier claims that the case was managed locally. CNN reported that the judge’s new order suggests the decision to prosecute might have involved “a joint decision with others who may or may not have acted with an improper motivation.” This language raises the stakes for Bondi and her team.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who has defended Abrego Garcia, pointed to the filings during an analysis on CNN. “This looks to me like a smoking gun against the administration, showing that this was a vindictive prosecution,” Van Hollen said. He argued that the DOJ pursued charges because Abrego Garcia claimed his rights after being “illegally shipped” to CECOT.
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In the CNN segment, senior legal analyst Elie Honig mentioned that while it is not unusual for DOJ leadership to coordinate with field prosecutors, the apparent motive poses a problem. He described it as an example of DOJ power being used “to settle a political score.” He highlighted the timeline: wrongful deportation, court loss, then indictment, as the crux of the vindictive prosecution claim.
Scrutiny has intensified because Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has publicly discussed the case in ways that critics say resemble an admission. In a clip aired by CNN, Blanche stated that after a judge accused the administration of wrongdoing, the DOJ had an “obligation” to investigate, and “that’s exactly what we did.” This language is likely to be used by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers as evidence that the prosecution was triggered by the administration’s court challenges.
Bondi has previously characterized the case as straightforward and accused him of being involved in a smuggling ring. When Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. to face charges, ABC News reported that Bondi said the grand jury found he “played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring,” and she described accusations involving “children and women.”
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
A judge is now suggesting that the defense may have enough to argue for a vindictive prosecution hearing. Crenshaw has already determined there is sufficient evidence to consider the claim and has scheduled a hearing for January 28, 2026, after canceling the previous trial date.
