Trump DOJ Officials RUN from TESTIMONY as CASES COLLAPSE!!!

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. Our audience has been on pins and needles waiting for the ruling in the Kilmer Abrego Garcia motion to dismiss his indictment for vindictive prosecution to see when his Kafkaesque experience at the hands of the Department of Justice was going to end.

[00:00:20]And it finally came to an end or at least this chapter of it with a ruling by Judge Krenshaw uh uh this finding a vindictive prosecution or at least the presumption of vindictive prosecution and the burden shifted back to the government not being met. He had no choice but to dismiss the indictment. I think this is going to be the blueprint and open the floodgates for dozens of motions for vindictive prosecution against this Department of Justice.

[00:00:48]There's uh this this may be the first ruling, but this will be this will not be the last motion. In fact, just a couple of days later, we had a new motion for vindictive prosecution modeling itself after the ruling at Kilmergo Garcia brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. So, it's already paying dividends. And once we we did the initial reporting about the case, I said if we could get the lawyers here who we we have admired from afar for the entirety of this case to come on our brief our audience, that would be lovely. And here we have the lawyers for the case to join us from the law firm of Hecker Frink. Uh Jenna Dabs and David Patton. How are you both >> doing? Great. Thank you for having us.

[00:01:32]And as I did pre-production, we have to you're not going to get that kind of applause uh maybe of your friends and family, but certainly here we've admired all of your work that you've done on the criminal side of the case. There's some other sets of lawyers that have been doing some amazing work um on the civil liberty side in Maryland, but this is the one that talks about um Garcia's liberty. And really, we're all Kilmer Garcia in this audience. We felt that way. Let me read for our audience and I'm just going to kick it over to you both to talk about it like the inside baseball stuff of what happened here and what do you think is going to happen next. Here's what the judge here how he concluded Judge Cranchaw concluded um his opinion. He said what the government has chosen not to address is as telling as what it has.

[00:02:20]The government's post-hering brief mentions Todd Blanch once in a parenthetical uh to some other uh testimony. It mentions the Supreme Court's ruling that was 90 in favor of Abrago Garcia and getting him out of the torture prison of El Salvador once in a footnote. It mentions Akash Singh who's the right-hand person for the then deputy attorney general Todd Blanch 11 times framing him as the recipient of updates but ignoring his close continuous substantive oversight meaning main justice directing traffic back in Tennessee. Um, and this lack of engaging with the evidence for the judge was very, very telling. He then quotes for the second time, having opened his opinion with a quote from one of my idols, I'm sure yours too, Robert H.

[00:03:09]Jackson, uh, attorney general for the United States, solicitor general for the United States on the United States Supreme Court, and the lead prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials. So, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to prosecutorial abuse. And he says that uh then attorney Robert H. Jackson cautioned that when the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for defense, that is the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power. The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power. Okay, turning it over to the lawyers that did the work. Tell me about um the you the motion that you filed the uh initial ruling that you got from the judge that presumptive vindictive prosecution had been met at least on a primmaach basis and then let's talk about the new decision.

[00:04:07]>> Um I'm I'm happy to kick things off and thank you for the lovely introduction.

[00:04:12]Uh I know David and I were both thrilled to work on this case and to work with Kilmar. Um we I think we knew as soon as we were brought into the case that we would bring a motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. Um it was clear from public statements that were made by a variety of people connected to um the government um and in particular um Todd Blanch, now our acting attorney general, who had um specific comments that that featured prominently in in Judge Krenshaw's decision and feature very prominently in our advocacy. Um really his were the only comments that really created kind of a direct bridge to the Supreme Court's order to bring Kilmar back to the US after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador. Um and so we, you know, we knew that was going to be part of our strategy all along. We started off as one often does in a criminal case with sort of an omnibus discovery letter and we included very specific content in there focused on this motion. Um and certainly the government was aware we were going to be bringing the motion. They of course um you know gave that part of our request the back of the hand and and it was interesting to have in the idea in mind but then as discovery was produced to have a much more fleshed out chronology of what had actually happened as we went along and we only had some pieces of it.

[00:05:37]We only had the detail about, you know, the the whole prosecution is linked to a traffic stop that happened back in November of 2022.

[00:05:47]Um, coming out of which our client didn't even receive a traffic ticket.

[00:05:53]Um, so that's that starting point already gives you the backdrop. Um, and when we brought the motion, we had certain pieces. Um but really Judge Krenshaw's decision to give um as you said the decision um shifting the burden and opening up discovery was a huge turning point.

[00:06:14]>> Let me ask you a question and maybe this goes to David once you got that ruling.

[00:06:20]I mean yes it's completely in your favor because now the burden is shifted to the government to prove they're not vindictively prosecuting. They also knew exactly the target that they needed to shoot for uh when the judge relied on the uh Laura Ingraham Todd Blanch interview and his comments which basically suggested that they were retaliating because they didn't like the rulings uh that they that they were getting in with Judge Zennus in Maryland. You know that Blanch is on the judge's mind. You know from the discovery that his right-hand deputy, Mr. Singh, is on the judge's mind.

[00:06:55]There's there's only so many moving parts in this case. How do you not why did the government, do you think, make the decision not to have Todd Blanch and Mr. Singh testify or provide any evidence in the case?

[00:07:10]>> Well, uh, it's a good question. Um, you would think that if you're the deputy attorney general then and now of course the acting attorney general and a judge in an initial order says, "I think there's a a likelihood that you, Mr. Blanch, personally are acting acting vindictively here, in other words, illegally."

[00:07:36]That if I were in Mr. Blanch's shoes, I'd be on the first plane to Nashville to say, "Judge, you got this wrong, and I want to clear my name, and I want to explain just what happened here, and that it was above board." And it's so telling that he didn't do that, or that no other official at DOJ did that.

[00:07:58]>> I mean, when you're sitting around, you know, I' I've been a litigator for 35 years. When you if you were sitting around a table and you were and you were the lead lawyers for the government, I mean, you would say to yourselves, would you not we cannot win this this motion without having the judge here? It would be it' be professional malpractice not to have the the judge hear from Todd Blanch. And it's not like he he couldn't have come up with something. Oh, it was the way it was edited. What? I was a slip of the tongue. what I really meant was, you know, it was an interview. It was on the-fly interview. He could have said, "It was a word salad that came out of my mouth. It wasn't exactly what I meant. They left the wrong impression, but they made somebody had to have made the decision. Either this was too beneath them or they just refused um they rather lose than have Todd Blanch or Akash Singh take the stand."

[00:08:54]>> Well, yeah. I think it's a it's a version of that that latter point which is they didn't want to expose themselves because the fact of the matter is this was a vindictive prosecution and if you're going to put yourself up on the stand and take an oath and have to turn over discovery right I mean if they resisted as Jenna was talking about they resisted any sort of meaningful discovery meaning communications within DOJ about the reasons for bringing this case uh communications within Homeland Security that it came out in the hearing had ordered the investigation to begin that headquarters had actually ordered the line agent to start this. So what we got the small amount of discovery we did get was damning enough. You can only imagine if we had actually gotten discovery out of do main Justice and and the Department of Homeland Security the sorts of things they were saying and and I don't think they wanted to expose themselves.

[00:09:58]>> Yeah. I don't know how you kept your eyebrows from flying off your face after you saw whatever you saw. And the judge I what I loved many things I loved about the decision I'm sure half as much as you is is the way he put together a a timeline probably from your papers and and the power of that timeline without argumentative language or rhetorical flourishes just just dates and times and events the momentum of it the power of it you have to come away inexraably with the with the conclusion if you're reading it that this was vindict ictive prosecution just with the timeline.

[00:10:36]>> I think that's right. Um and uh you know, Jenna and I are here talking to you. Uh but you know, our partner Sean Hecker and many others here at our firm just did a remarkable job of pulling all these strings together and compiling them exactly as as you were saying.

[00:10:59]We didn't need to have a lot of rhetorical flourish in our papers. All we needed to do was lay out that timeline and the facts.

[00:11:07]>> Let me ask Jenna, let me Jenny, let me ask you a question. I I have a theory and and and you tell me if if this holds any water, the when you have a Department of Justice that's been captured by the president, when you have a flattening of the organization in the way that we've now seen it, I mean, a complete flattening of the hierarchy where where you know, you you guys have been doing this long as long as longer than me and you you have your federal prosecutor backgrounds as well. I mean, you've got Maine Just It's not hard now for defense lawyers to argue that Maine justice and maybe even the top two or three people in Maine justice are calling the shots on local prosecutions, whereas in the past, how hard would it have been? Have you ever in your careers filed andor won a motion for vindictive prosecution before this one?

[00:11:57]>> Uh, definitely not. Um nor in my time as a prosecutor did I mean did any whiff of that ever come into any practice that I was involved in or frankly that my whole office was involved in. I mean look you know >> David and I were talking about this earlier. I mean the hearing the the sort of final hearing on this um was handled by the number three at the department. I mean it's it's like unheard of. Um and and all of it was sort of a trimming down of what they were actually going to put in front of the judge. And and you know, we did argue that it was clear out of the gate that it wasn't going to be adequate. Look, I have a lot of respect for the judge for being so methodical and deliberate and I think giving every opportunity along the way, which is understandable given the nature of the case, which obviously became a rather high-profile endeavor. Um, but you know, to be sitting there at the hearing when they were already so limited with witnesses and we were expecting uh to have uh one of the agents from Baltimore that actually participated in reopening the investigation and um you know lawyers from the Department of Justice are are sitting there and and putting this narrative in front of the court. and they started with a supervisory um special agent, former one from Nashville, the HSI agent based there. Um and when that began and the the description was just this is a purely Nashvillebased thing, I read a newspaper article. I decided to call up the US attorney. Hey, maybe we should do something about this traffic stop. I mean, on its face, it was ridiculous.

[00:13:41]When viewed in the context of the chronology, it was obviously implausible, fully implausible. But we we were sitting at council table and said, "Oh, they're not even going to call the other guy. Why would they?

[00:13:55]They're going to make it this very contained thing." I mean, it was it was like talking past each other. And the judge had asked these very clear questions that had to be answered. And we kept trying to frame our briefing in the context of those questions. namely like what changed from deport and do not prosecute to you know prosecute? Um I'm not even not remembering the perfect the judge said how did it go from remove and not indict to indict and not remove.

[00:14:24]>> Right. Um and they never engaged with that question at all.

[00:14:27]>> Right. Right. And and he and he was kind to Mr. Maguire. The acting then interim said his testimony was choppy. That's an interesting turn of a phrase um about um the government's characterization. This is on page 29 of Maguire's communications with Maine justice as a one-way street meaning Maguire to justice loses credibility when Maguire himself acknowledges dependence on Maine justice for Abrego's return direction from Singh congratulatory contact from Blanch and uncertainty about what was being asked of him. These contradictions undermine how much consideration Maguire's testimony even deserves.

[00:15:10]That's a that's a good day in court.

[00:15:13]>> Yeah. I mean, so much of his testimony was telling. Uh we said we we didn't get a lot of discovery, but we did get some.

[00:15:25]And the some of the really the most damning were these emails between the prosecutor in Nashville, Rob Maguire, and a very high official at Maine Justice, Akos Singh, basically right-hand man to Todd Blanch. And uh you know the if I can just like actually read some of the things Akash Singh said to to the prosecutor um two days after presenting Mr. Maguire the Nashville uh uh prosecutor with a cooperating witness. In other words, the Nashville prosecutor learns of this case from main justice from Singh who's delivering him >> a witness.

[00:16:12]>> And then shortly after that says to him in an email, can we sketch out a draft complaint? And at the hearing, Mr. Magcguire said, yeah, I don't know why he said we. That seems odd. I mean, he's the only one on the face of the planet who thinks that's odd. And later on in the process, Singh says to him, "Let's keep a close hold on uh the charges until we get clearance." Obviously meaning until it gets cleared at DOJ by the higherups probably by Todd Blanch and Pam Bondi at the time.

[00:16:46]>> Right.

[00:16:49]>> I don't know why he said that. You know, it's just not credible.

[00:16:54]>> And Jenna's point that Stan Woodward comes to from fresh off his stint at representing Walt Na in the Mara Lago case when he was in private practice, now the number three in the Department of Justice, dust off his trial bag to come in to try the case, which goes to my point of this complete collapse of the hierarchy, which which is going to I think right abode well for future motions to like the Southern Poverty Law Center has the same actors. Sing is back. It's like they got the band back together again two days later and Todd Blanch is back.

[00:17:30]>> Yeah, it's the the playbook is uh an alarming one and to the extent this precedent ends up being useful in other contexts than that um will be very gratifying. I was going to say when I saw it I was like they just gave a blueprint to all the other whether it's James Comey or the future Leticia James one or SPLC or you know and right on Q Southern Poverty Law Center big sections of their motion uh quoting Judge Crenshaw and talking about that there.

[00:17:59]Um they don't have I don't just update our audience. I assume they're going to appeal. What's going on there if we know anything?

[00:18:06]>> I mean the the public statement is that they will absolutely appeal. Um my I think our expectation is that they will we we will wait and see. Um they obviously have the immigration case front. Um that also may factor into their considerations here, but um yeah, I certainly am expecting it. Do even though it didn't show up, and this is for either one of you, even though it didn't show up in the actual opinion because it wasn't relevant there, do you think some of the and you were doing some great work in front of the magistrate judge as well, uh, who completely destroyed the credibility of any of these witnesses against Abrao Garcia when she let him out of federal detention? Uh, she wasn't having any of it. Do you think, you know, there's always that relation between the federal judge and the magistrate judge. Do you think any of that also seeped into the decision-making by the judge?

[00:19:01]>> I I mean I think I look he there were there was sort of a two-phase bail process here and we have to give important credit to the federal defenders in Nashville who started with this case and did an exceptional job as they always do. We also should mention our colleague and Nashville Rasco Dean who was tremendous and very much a part of the team and a huge huge piece of it.

[00:19:23]But I mean, Judge Krenshaw's decision draws from the evidentiary record in both of those proceedings in addition to the hearing that was targeted to this issue. I see.

[00:19:32]>> Um, and it's definitely been clear to us that there has been communication among the various judges handling both, you know, the pieces of the criminal case and also the broader um immigration matter.

[00:19:44]>> Oh, interesting. That's very interesting. How much just a little inside baseball and you can reveal it or not reveal it. How much coordination, if any, was there between your your team and the team in Maryland on the ground for his civil liberties and civil rights case and due process case?

[00:20:00]>> Do you want?

[00:20:02]>> Sure. I mean, uh, there's necessar there needs to be a lot of coordination. Um, just, uh, there were overlapping issues with respect to detention. You know, we had to fight quite a long time, uh, to get him out. He was held in jail in Tennessee for for quite some time. And so there are a lot of issues that overlap that do require a lot of coordination and he's got terrific uh lawyers in Maryland. They deserve a ton of credit for what they've done so far.

[00:20:32]Simon Sandival Motionberg and the team at Quinn Emanuel, Sasha Ran, Jonathan Cooper, Andrew Rossman. So a lot of great lawyers uh that it's been really nice to collaborate with.

[00:20:44]>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I've told people that, you know, Kilmergo Garcia has never been convicted of anything in any country. He's had an order of non- removal in his back pocket. And every court that's ever looked at anything related to him, he's been the winner.

[00:20:58]And yet, look look what he's had got sucked back into a detention center in Maryland for another series of another bit of time and you know before it's just it's just remarkable. And yet this administration, although look, the the winds have the political winds have changed considerably against this administration for where they were a year ago, but they had no problem even to this day. Even to this moment, you've got Cash Patel when he's he's going back and forth with Senator Van Galand who says, "You're the one that had the drinks with the with the gang banger.

[00:21:30]you whatever whatever that's supposed to mean. You're the you know as he's trying to take on Van Holland because he ran up a tab for for dinner with 50 people and comparing it to his own drinking issues and but but he takes a pot shot at your own client. I mean whether it's Tom Holman or Patel or Bondi when she was around or Blanch this whole thing they purposely get wrong what he was indicted for. It wasn't right. It's not human uh trafficking. It was human smuggling which is a whole different thing. They keep saying he was a wife beater and a ch and a child in d. We're like stop.

[00:22:05]Now the problem is even though the winds have changed and you think this would be a good opportunity to take the loss and go away, you there is a there is a very good chance they're going to appeal and keep this going against them. Right.

[00:22:18]>> That's that's right. And I do just want to I I don't want it to be lost how courageous Kilmar has been and um how you know he's made some very hard decisions in the course of this litigation. He didn't have to go this path of fighting and exposing the administration for what they're doing there. You know, there were other possible ways to deal with this and he didn't choose them. He he chose the harder route after being tortured in one of the most brutal places in the world after being brought back only to be jailed again for about six months during the course of these proceedings. To be threatened with uh removal to countries in Africa with which he has no relationship whatsoever. He's a father of three, a husband. He his family has stood by him throughout uh and it's not been easy on them. I mean, this has just been an an extraordinary ordeal, and he deserves uh the most credit of anyone for the result that we got on Friday.

[00:23:22]>> One, we can't forget the the human being who's at the center of of all this for which you're doing all your great legal work. I'm glad I'm glad you put it that way. And and as but one example, and if I get it wrong, you tell me. I I I believe that there was a proposal or an offer by the government that if he plead guilty to the charge in Tennessee, they'd let him be removed to Costa Rica, which is where he ultimately want to go, and he turned that down. Is that right?

[00:23:47]>> There there were preliminary discussions about possible alternatives, but um Kilmar felt very strongly that this was a matter of principle.

[00:23:57]>> Yeah.

[00:23:58]>> And that this what what was being done to him here was wrong. uh and it needed to be exposed and writed and and we're still on that path. As you as you said, it's not over. Uh they continue to threaten removal to Liberia. They're still talking about appeals. So, it's not over for him. But, uh my god, what what courage he's shown. And Jenna, just as we end it here, talk about why a like a firm like yours who who has paying clients who who represents people who are targeted by the government or in other in other civil matters. Why was it important for your firm to take on the case of Kilmer Abrao Garcia?

[00:24:41]>> Look, I think um I think this applies to all lawyers. It certainly applies to those lawyers who have chosen the practice focus that David and I have and and you know are eager to get into a criminal case over anything else any time. Um all of us depend on and participate in a system that is fundamentally rooted in the rule of law.

[00:25:04]Um and you have to be able to rely on um the collective participation of everyone including government lawyers in that system in good faith. And I don't know that there's a more important sort of matter to be involved in in terms of just how it impacts the rest of our practice and frankly what's going on in the world right now. And David and I have the privilege of working in a firm where we have collectively decided that we're going to devote a very meaningful part of our resources to work that we think is important and in the public interest and that is um touches on issues that we care about. And so we have uh worked hard including for our paying clients to develop a practice that can support that. And this one, when this came to us, um there was I think no question about how we would jump in and that we would jump in fully with as big a team as we needed. And you know, we had um incredible volunteers from the ranks of our junior lawyers who were eager to work on this matter and who have, you know, been seeing Kilmar through this process along with us from day one. So, I you know, I I it's it's a professional gift to work on a case like this and it's um I just think it's critically important. I think all lawyers should be working on cases like this.

[00:26:31]>> Absolutely. I'm glad you said it that way. Our audience, you know, listen, you know, we started the administration with a bunch of law firms, including one that I work for that decided to bend the knee and give billion a billion dollars worth of proono services to Donald Trump. And then you've got firms like yours. And uh my my audience needs to hear from people like you and your firm and uh and uh you Jenna and David to know that and give them hope that there are lawyers who take our oath seriously and are are willing to put away any kind of personal benefit or economic benefit just to do the right thing for our democracy and for our rule of law. and I think my audience will sleep better at night having now been introduced to the two of you and your successful work. Really pleased that you came on Legal AF. Thank you.

[00:27:19]>> Thanks for having us.

[00:27:20]>> Absolutely. I'm Michael Popac. Pardon me.

[00:27:24]I'm Michael Popac. Thanks for being on Legal AF uh with the fantastic team of Jenna Dabs and David Patton to talk about their giant win for democracy and the rule of law for Kilmer Abrego Garcia. You're on Legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Can't get your fill of legal AF? Me neither.

[00:27:47]That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hottake, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack, you'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal A are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.