Don’t miss detailed analysis of the major cases, including my conversation with Harry Litman at the top of this newsletter.
Exactly 20 days after the Supreme Court ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche sent his marching orders to the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Blanche’s aide Aakash Singh called a potential case against Abrego “a top priority” in an email dated April 30, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday.
Those are just one of the unsealed messages supporting Abrego’s motion to dismiss his criminal smuggling charges on the ground of malicious prosecution.
Donald Trump’s Justice Department fought against the release of the messages on the grounds of government work product, attorney-client and deliberative process privileges, but a federal judge rejected each of those in turn.
“The Court recognizes the government’s assertion of privileges, but Abrego’s due process right to a non-vindictive prosecution outweighs the blanket evidentiary privileges asserted by the government,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in a ruling made public today.
‘High command looped in’
The criminal case against Abrego centers on a traffic stop from November 2022, when he was released without a ticket.
In December 2022, the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation that went cold for three years.
Then, in March 2025, the Trump administration spirited Abrego out of the United States to El Salvador, and Homeland Security Investigations closed its case file on Abrego weeks later.
That was before Abrego’s legal team won a series of victories from the district court level all the way up to the Supreme Court.
On April 27, a couple of weeks after the Supreme Court demanded that the Trump administration “facilitate” Abrego’s release from El Salvador, prosecutors received Abrego’s previously closed case file from Homeland Security Investigations.
Three days later, Acting U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire wrote that “we want the high command looped in” on potential charges against Abrego. The emails show that McGuire, who claimed to have made the decision to prosecute Abrego on his own, worked in close communication with the Office of the Attorney General.
“Ultimately, I would hope to have ODAG [Office of the Deputy Attorney General] eyes on it as we move towards a decision about whether this matter is going to ultimately be charged,” McGuire wrote on May 15.
“While ultimately, the office’s decision to charge will land on me[,] I think it makes sense to get the benefit of all of your brains and talent in this process and as we consider this case,” the message continued. “I have not received specific direction from ODAG other than I have heard anecdotally that the DAG and PDAG would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.”
Three days before Abrego’s indictment, Blanche’s aide received an update on the case.
“We’re working over the weekend to finalize an indictment that we will send to you tomorrow night or first thing Monday,” Singh learned in an email dated May 18, 2025.
‘Did not act alone’
Judge Crenshaw noted that McGuire previously denied that Blanche ordered Abrego’s prosecution.
“These documents show that McGuire did not act alone and to the extent McGuire had input on the decision to prosecute, he shared it with Singh and others,” Crenshaw wrote. “Specifically, the government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences.”
On May 18, Singh instructed McGuire to “close[ly] hold” the draft indictment until the group ‘g[o]t clearance.”
“The implication is that ‘clearance’ would come from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, not just McGuire,” the ruling states.
Judge Crenshaw scheduled an evidentiary hearing to determine on Abrego’s motion to dismiss the case on the basis of vindictive prosecution for Jan. 28.
The fact that the hearing will take place forces the government to rebut a presumption of vindictiveness with “objective, on-the-record explanations” that the case was brought for legitimate reasons.
Abrego’s lead criminal defense attorney Sean Hecker argues that the emails create a heavy burden for the government to carry.
“Those documents make it even more difficult for the government to meet its burden because the link between Mr. Blanche’s retaliatory animus and the decision to prosecute is now crystal clear,” Hecker wrote.
Read the judge’s just-unsealed ruling disclosing the messages here.
Look out for live coverage of the evidentiary hearing on All Rise News in January, and check out my 35-minute conversation with Harry Litman at the top of this newsletter.
