The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a motion that once was considered a unicorn and a Hail Mary pass in terms of U.S. criminal procedure: seeking to dismiss its indictment for vindictive prosecution.
On Tuesday, the SPLC put a new precedent at the center of its request — the dismissal of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Allison Gill and I explained in a Substack Live conversation on Wednesday that the Abrego precedent’s appearance 23 times in the SPLC’s motion is no accident. Both cases feature a familiar cast of characters and developments.
In both cases, now-Acting U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche made potentially prejudicial remarks about the defendant on national TV that could damage the government’s case. Blanche’s aide Aakash Singh played a key role in carrying out his boss’s objectives, and a line-up of high-ranking Trump administration officials engaged in a pre-trial media blitz against the defendant.
In Abrego’s case, the then-Chief of the Criminal Division for the Middle District of Tennessee resigned on the day of the sealed indictment.
In the SPLC’s case, Justice Department whistleblowers reportedly told congressional Democrats that Blanche rushed the case before any investigation could be completed.
“Before the grand jury returned the indictment, the prosecutors did not interview any current employees of the organization nor make any request of the SPLC’s counsel for any voluntary interviews of employees,” the civil rights group revealed in its motion. “They had already determined to seek an indictment without ever reaching out to counsel for the SPLC.”
In a roughly 40-minute conversation, Allison Gill and I dive deep into the motion, its footnotes, and the new reality of Trump 2.0, in which formerly longshot motions face increasing odds of success with growing piles of evidence at their side.
