The Trump DOJ’s Defense Of The Abrego Garcia Prosecution Only Works If You Squint Real Hard

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE–Trump’s DOJ has spent the past several months constructing a narrowly focused narrative that then-acting U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire of Nashville was the sole decision to seek a human trafficking indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia last May while he was still detained in El Salvador, the victim of wrongful deportation in violation of an immigration judge’s order.

So it’s no surprise that McGuire is now the government’s key witness defending Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution. And if one focused only on what was illuminated by the government’s spotlight on McGuire, he was a compelling witness. He seemed serious, well-meaning, professional and without guile. He was frank, did not get defensive and was consistent throughout his testimony.

But Trump’s DOJ, despite its best efforts, could not prevent some uncomfortable facts from sneaking into McGuire’s spotlight. And for anyone familiar with the matter, the trick to seeing clearly is to step outside the narrow confines of the administration to see the broader context.

Days after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador in March 2025, the Trump administration, including the White House itself, launched a blistering smear campaign against Abrego Garcia, the goal of which was to publicly argue that he was a bad person who deserved his fate. As Abrego Garcia began to win in court – first in Maryland federal court, then in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally in the Supreme Court – the government’s smear campaign against him intensified. It was around this time that DHS extracted information about a traffic stop that occurred in 2022, presenting him in its effort to defend its mishandling of his deportation.

The chronology is striking:

March 15, 2025: Abrego García is deported to El Salvador

April 1, 2025: Homeland Security Investigations closes human trafficking investigation into Abrego Garcia.

April 4, 2025: Maryland federal judge orders administration to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s return

April 7, 2025: The court of appeal confirms the decision

April 10, 2025: The Supreme Court confirms the decision

April 17, 2025: HSI reopens its investigation

May 21, 2025: Abrego Garcia is indicted

For Trump’s DOJ, The most uncomfortable fact that could have crept into his story in today’s testimony before U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. in Nashville was that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Aakash Singh already knew more about the criminal investigation into Abrego Garcia than McGuire did when they first discussed the case.

McGuire recounted receiving an unusual phone call last Sunday afternoon or evening of April 27 from Rana Saoud, the special agent in charge of the HSI Nashville office, warning him about the I-40 traffic stop of Abrego Garcia in late 2022, years before he would become a poster child for the arbitrary, capricious and inept nature of Trump’s mass deportation operation.

A few hours after that call, McGuire received an email from Singh.

“I knew instantly what the email was about,” McGuire testified.

The subject line of the email referred to a man who would become the main witness against Abrego Garcia and who was allegedly involved in the human trafficking operation with him; the SUV that Abrego Garcia was driving when he was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, he was registered with them. Besides McGuire, the other recipients of the email were the U.S. attorney in Alabama, where the man was imprisoned, and the U.S. attorney in Texas, where he was convicted.

During cross-examination, McGuire was insisted that Singh had knowledge of this witness before he did. “A lot of people knew this witness before me,” McGuire conceded.

Singh’s email, which arranged a call the next day with him and the three U.S. attorneys, showed that Singh was already on the case and coordinating the investigation that McGuire, who had just learned of the traffic stop, was apparently going to lead. McGuire said he would learn that a second witness had emerged shortly before his involvement in the case, a woman who claimed to have been involved in the human trafficking operation in 2018-19 and who could place Abrego Garcia there.

Much of McGuire’s testimony focused on various email exchanges involving him, Singh and other investigators from late April until the May 21 indictment, which were largely of no use to the government. Woodward’s task was to detonate these grenades directly before Abrego Garcia’s lawyers could cause damage with them during cross-examination. They included emails from Singh saying things like “Keep me posted,” “How close are we to billing?” “” and “Do we have any idea of ​​the potential charges?”

McGuire presented these emails as normal surveillance of the assistant attorney general’s office, emphasizing his own responsibility, as outlined in the DOJ’s justice manual, to keep the assistant attorney general informed. An email from Singh just before the indictment told McGuire and other recipients: “Let’s maintain control until we get clearance.” » Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are reportedly focusing on who agreed to pursue the indictment. McGuire testified that he wasn’t sure what Singh meant by that because “we weren’t asking for permission.”

Saoud, who has since retired from HSI, was the government’s only other witness at today’s hearing. She testified that she first learned about the 2022 traffic stop from the Tennessee Star, a conservative media outlet that reported on it on April 16. She didn’t remember who showed her the article. testifying that it was either a friend or a colleague.

After learning of the traffic stop, Saoud first called the Tennessee Highway Patrol and then directly called McGuire due to the high-profile nature of the case, Saoud said. Then, she said, she called her direct manager at HSI headquarters in Washington and told him she was looking into the matter “given the notoriety of the individual involved.” She presented it as a bureaucratic warning. “We are not influenced by public attention or political considerations in deciding whether to open an investigation,” she said.

Yet Abrego Garcia’s notoriety was a recurring theme in Saoud and McGuire’s testimony. Time and again, they confirmed that Abrego Garcia’s case was handled differently because of his high public profile. In bureaucratic terms, this makes sense. No one wants to be blindsided by a controversial matter. But it didn’t help the government that Abrego Garcia was treated differently.

McGuire decided to handle the matter personally rather than delegate it to someone in his office. “I knew it was going to be controversial,” he testified. “I’d rather it be me than anyone else.”

He even anticipated that he would one day be in court defending a vindictive lawsuit, as he was today, and did not want to place that burden on a subordinate. The traffic stop was more than two years ago, so the question would be “Why now?” » McGuire testified. “I took action as soon as I heard about it, but I couldn’t change when I heard about it.”

This speaks to a central dynamic of the case: Abrego Garcia was not known because of the crimes with which he had been accused. He was known to have been a victim of the Trump administration, which refused to admit its mistake in deporting him and tried to save face by continually upping the ante and defying court orders in a showdown with the judiciary.

The subtext of McGuire’s testimony was that everyone involved at all levels of government knew the implications of a criminal prosecution of Abrego Garcia. Everyone knew which “side” the administration was on. There was no need to explicitly tell them what to do or receive direct orders. Abrego Garcia was a thorn in the side of the Trump administration, and everyone knew it.

McGuire’s defense, which is fair as far as it goes, is that he would never have brought criminal charges against Abrego Garcia if the facts did not support it. He also testified convincingly that he would have refused to prosecute if the facts did not warrant it. “I wasn’t going to charge for something I didn’t believe in,” he said. But that largely sidesteps the broader point that HSI rushed to reopen the investigation, top executives like Saoud and McGuire quickly moved to investigate, and an indictment was quickly returned.

Trump’s DOJ’s unusual handling of the case was further betrayed by the man who has been its lead lawyer defending the vindictive prosecution request: Deputy Attorney General Stan Woodward, the DOJ’s No. 3, who personally handled McGuire’s direct testimony today.

Woodward began by cutting to the chase, eliciting testimony from McGuire that he and he alone made the decision to seek an indictment and were not directed, instructed, or pressured to do so by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche or anyone else at the DOJ, DHS, or the White House. McGuire stood alone in Woodward’s spotlight.

Yet in an internal DOJ email, McGuire wrote that he learned that Blanche and then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wanted Abrego Garcia indicted as soon as possible. On the stand, McGuire didn’t remember who told him that.

The onus today fell on Trump’s DOJ. Their task was to send him back to Abrego Garcia. If they fail, Abrego Garcia wins. If they are successful, Judge Crenshaw said he would consider letting Abrego Garcia conduct further investigations and calling top DOJ leaders, including Blanche and Singh, to testify.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Crenshaw requested more information from both sides and suggested he may also want oral arguments. Crenshaw asked the witnesses a few questions, but he did not raise his hand.