Federal Judge Skewers Top Trump Officials Over ‘Troubling’ Statements Against Abrego Garcia

A federal judge censured top Trump administration officials for making several out-of-court statements against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who the government wrongly sent to a Salvadoran megaprison before returning him to the U.S. to face immigrant smuggling charges in Nashville.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said many prejudicial comments from Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other senior officials violated a local court rule and threaten Abrego Garcia’s right to a fair trial.

The judge’s warning is the latest example of Trump officials’ incendiary extrajudicial comments being used against the Department of Justice (DOJ) in high-profile criminal and civil cases.

“Government employees have made extrajudicial statements that are troubling, especially where many of them are exaggerated if not simply inaccurate,” Crenshaw wrote in an opinion Monday.

“These statements made allegations regarding Abrego’s ‘character or reputation’ and expressed government officials’ views on Abrego’s ‘guilt or innocence,’” the judge added.

Among several examples, Crenshaw highlighted Noem describing Abrego Garcia in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release as being an “MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator,” an assertion that other DHS officials repeated in other public releases.

Crenshaw also noted that Bondi made extrajudicial statements while officially announcing charges against Abrego Garcia in June.

Stopping short of issuing a gag order, Crenshaw instead instructed prosecutors to inform DOJ and DHS employees — including Bondi and Noem — of a local court rule limiting official comments on ongoing criminal cases.

The judge said despite the statements, he was confident Abrego Garcia would ultimately receive a fair trial because media coverage of the case has “gradually subsided” both nationally and in Tennessee.

Earlier this month, Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia showed there was a “realistic likelihood” that the DOJ is vindictively prosecuting him for asserting his legal rights in his successful civil lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador.

The most telling statement, Crenshaw said, came from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said on Fox News in June that the government only started investigating Abrego Garcia after a judge ruled that the Trump administration did not have the authority to remove him from the U.S.

Crenshaw said Abrego Garcia was entitled to discovery against the Trump administration and a hearing in which he can present evidence on why his case should be tossed for vindictive and selective prosecution.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers moved to subpoena Blanche and other senior DOJ officials to testify at the vindictive prosecution hearing, which is set to take place next week. However, the DOJ has asked Crenshaw to quash those subpoenas.

Separately, DOJ attorneys told a U.S. district judge in Maryland that the Trump administration would seek to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia by the end of the week — even if doing so would collapse the department’s criminal case against him in Tennessee.

Liberia is just the latest in a series of African countries the Trump administration has designated as possible destinations for Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who has lived in the U.S. for years with his wife and children — all of whom are American citizens.

An immigration judge in 2019 granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador.