The federal criminal and immigration proceedings involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia (“Abrego”) are among the strangest we’ve ever encountered. They are defined by the Trump administration’s barely concealed vindictiveness against a man whom officials have branded a member of the savage MS-13 criminal gang — an allegation that has never even been formally charged, much less proved, notwithstanding Vice President JD Vance’s public claim that Abrego is “a convicted MS-13 gang member.”
As I noted in a post this week, that vindictiveness has now resulted in the dismissal of the criminal charges against Abrego. The alien-smuggling indictment was thrown out last week by a federal court in the Middle District of Tennessee. Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., an Obama appointee, issued the ruling in a 32-page memorandum opinion. To cut to the chase, Judge Crenshaw concluded that, in order to punish Abrego for pursuing his procedural rights after the Trump administration illegally deported him, the Trump DOJ indicted Abrego based on years-old conduct the feds had previously decided not to charge.
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