Abrego Garcia AND the Rule of Law Win; Trump's Corrupt DOJ Goons Lose!

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]So friends, today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the rule of law, and the United States Constitution, all one.

[00:00:14]Let's talk about that because justice matters.

[00:00:34]Hey all, Glen Kersner here. So friends, back in 2019, a young El Salvadoran immigrant named Kilmar Abrego Garcia went to court, immigration court, and using the rule of law and using the protections of our constitution, he won a court order prohibiting the federal government from deporting him to El Salvador.

[00:01:02]But in March of 2025, Donald Trump's officials violated that court order and violated Abrego Garcia's constitutional rights, his due process rights of notice and opportunity to be heard. notice of what the government is going to try to do to you and an opportunity to be heard in court by a judge to have the judge make the decision as to whether the government gets to do what it's trying to do to you. The Trump administration violated that 2019 court order and they violated the constitution. They stuffed Abrego Garcia on a plane and they sent him to El Salvador.

[00:01:49]the exact country a judge had prohibited the government from sending him to. And friends, what is maybe even worse, Abrego Garcia had been convicted of no crime, but the Trump administration paid the government of El Salvador to imprison him in a notoriously dangerous terrorism prison.

[00:02:16]And Abrego Garcia had a decision to make. What was he going to do? Where would he plant his feet? You know, friends, one of my favorite Abraham Lincoln sayings is be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

[00:02:35]Abrego Garcia decided to plant his feet, at least figuratively speaking, as he sat in that prison in El Salvador. plant his feet in federal court back in the United States. He brought suit to enforce the the rights that had been taken away from him, his constitutional rights, due process rights. Notice an opportunity to be heard. And he beat the federal government. He beat Donald Trump's dirty DOJ officials.

[00:03:08]And he beat them all the way up to the Supreme Court. He beat them in the trial court. He beat them in the court of appeals. He beat them in front of the United States Supreme Court. And so what did Donald Trump's dirty DOJ officials do? Guys like Todd Blanch, they jinned up a vindictive criminal prosecution against Abrego Garcia based on a 2022 traffic stop in which not only was he not arrested, he didn't get so much as a ticket. and they jinned up a bogus prosecution and they used that as a pretext to punish Abrego Garcia for winning for asserting his rights and winning.

[00:03:54]And today a federal judge down in Tennessee called the Trump administration out on it and dismissed Abrego Garcia's criminal case in Tennessee based on vindictive prosecution. Let's start with just a little bit of the new reporting. This from CNN. Headline, judge dismisses charges against Kilar Abrego Garcia, saying Todd Blanch spurred a tainted investigation.

[00:04:26]The criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the Trump administration deported to El Salvador last year, despite a judge's order barring his removal to the country, have been dismissed by a federal judge in Tennessee who cited a tainted investigation by now acting attorney general Todd Blanch. When he was transported back to the US last year, Abrego Garcia was immediately charged with two counts, two criminal counts of allegedly transporting unlawful migrants in 2022.

[00:05:02]His attorneys fought the charges, saying they should be dismissed because they were selective and vindictive because of the administration's public and private missteps in how they handled the matter.

[00:05:17]Quote, "The objective evidence here shows that absent Abrego's successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution." Judge Waverly Krenshaw wrote in his opinion, dismissing the criminal case on Friday.

[00:05:38]The judge added that an investigation into the 2022 traffic stop that the charges stem from was closed. And only after Abrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the executive branch, Trump's executive branch reopen that investigation last year. This quote from the judge. Quote, "The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power." Judge Krenshaw wrote, "That's right, friends. Abrego Garcia won, the rule of law won, and the United States Constitution one." Let's roll through just a little bit of Judge Krenshaw's opinion. In the case of United States of America plaintiff versus Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia defendant memorandum opinion.

[00:06:39]Then Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second.

[00:06:51]Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor that he will pick people that he thinks he should get rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.

[00:07:04]That is the situation here. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia moves to dismiss the indictment for vindictive and selective prosecution in violation of the fifth amendment's due process clause. His motion arises from the executive branch's response to his lawsuit, challenging his wrongful removal from the United States to El Salvador. His lawsuit resulted in a judicial branch unanimously directing the executive branch to facilitate Abrego's return.

[00:07:40]Within days of the Supreme Court's ruling, the Department of Homeland Security reopened its closed investigation of a November 30th, 2022 traffic stop of Abrego in the middle district of Tennessee. Less than 30 days after that, DOJ charged Abrego and finally returned him to the United States to answer a two-count indictment.

[00:08:04]That indictment charges Abrego with conspiring to transport aliens between 2016 and 2025 and with transporting undocumented aliens during the November 2022 traffic stop. The court previously found that Abrego had made a primapaccia showing of some evidence of a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness.

[00:08:30]That threshold showing shifted the burden to the government, to the prosecutors to rebut the resulting presumption of vindictiveness.

[00:08:40]To afford the government that opportunity, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing on February 26, 2026.

[00:08:48]The government presented two witnesses.

[00:08:51]The court has considered their testimony to the extent that it is credible and the exhibits admitted into evidence.

[00:08:58]After the evidentiary hearing, the parties submitted post-hering briefs.

[00:09:03]The court draws its factual findings from the complete record in the case and from related litigation. And then in a lengthy opinion, the judge goes through the evidence of vindictiveness. He goes through Homeland Security's decision to reopen the investigation. And then he goes on to address Todd Blanch's unrebuted statements. Let me share a little bit of what the judge said about that. Blanch did not testify at the February 26th evidentiary hearing. His public statements stand unrebuted.

[00:09:40]Blanch stated that the executive branch began investigating Abrago after a judge in Maryland questioned the executive branch's decision, Trump's decision to deport him. The court previously found that Blanch's remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego's criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights and that Blanch directly tied Homeland Security's investigation to Abraos's Maryland suit.

[00:10:21]Blanch's words directly confirm that the executive branch, Trump's executive branch, reopened the criminal investigation because the judicial branch required the executive branch to facilitate Abrago's return from El Salvador.

[00:10:40]The judge then took apart each and every bogus argument offered by Donald Trump's dirty DOJ officials. The government's non- retaliatory explanations fall short. The newly discovered evidence explanation fails. The independent prosecutor explanation fails. And then let's go to the conclusion. The government's rebuttal to the presumption of vindictiveness does not engage with the evidence. As a matter of logic, the government cannot rebut a presumption when it does not address the evidence supporting the presumption.

[00:11:28]The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power.

[00:11:36]Abrego's motion to dismiss the indictment must be granted because justice matters.

[00:11:48]Friends, as always, please stay safe, please stay tuned, and I look forward to talking with you all again tomorrow.