New questions emerge from the new charges in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case

NBC News

5 hours ago

The sudden return of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to the United States on Friday to face federal charges of smuggling migrants across the country was a messaging triumph for the Trump administration.
The news deflected public attention from a series of unanimous court rulings —including a Supreme Court decision —that President Donald Trump did not have the power to unilaterally detain and deport individuals to foreign prisons without a review by a judge.
And the allegations against Abrego-Garcia are damning. A federal grand jury found that the 29-year-old was an MS-13 member who transported thousands of undocumented immigrants, including children, from Texas to states across the country for profit for nine years. He allegedly also transported firearms and drugs, abused female migrants and was linked to an incident in Mexico where a tractor-trailer overturned and killed 50 migrants.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer representing Abrego-Garcia, said Saturday that he planned to meet his client for the first time on Sunday, but declined to further comment.
A former senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, said he was struck by the large amount of resources the DOJ put into investigating Abrego Garcia.
'It is odd that they would use all of these folks to go after a low-level driver,' said the official. 'Usually, we used the driver to go after the coyotes and up if we could. But they really wanted to get this guy and it looks like they found a path.'
In a telephone interview with NBC News's Kristen Welker on Saturday, Trump hailed Abrego-Garcia's indictment and predicted it would be easy for federal prosecutors to convict him. 'I think it should be,' he said. 'It should be.'
Multiple questions about Abrego-Garcia, the case against him, and the political fallout remain unanswered.
Will Democrats pay a political price?
For months, Abrego-Garcia's lawyers, his wife, and some Democrats, have denied that he was an MS-13 gang member. They generally portrayed him as a Maryland construction worker and claimed he was transporting co-workers when a Tennessee state trooper stopped him on Interstate 40 on November 30, 2022.
The indictment paints a different picture: Abrego-Garcia was transporting nine Hispanic males without identification or luggage in a Chevrolet Suburban. Prosecutors allege he 'knowingly and falsely' told the trooper they 'had been in St. Louis for two weeks doing construction' and were returning to Maryland.
However, license plate reader data showed that the Suburban had not been near St. Louis for twelve months. Instead, it had been in Houston where, according to prosecutors, Abrego-Garcia had picked up the men. The vehicle was not carrying tools or construction equipment, but its rear cargo area had been modified with makeshift seating to transport more passengers.
The apparent strength of the government's case could reignite debate among Democrats about the risks of focusing on Abrego-Garcia's case. For weeks, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and other Democrats emphasized that their criticism targeted Trump's decision to unilaterally deport Abrego-Garcia without judicial oversight, not a defense of Abrego Garcia himself.
When Welker asked about Van Hollen, President Trump mocked the Senator and said defending the Abrego Garcia would backfire on Democrats.
'He's a loser. The guy's a loser,' Trump said, referring to Van Hollen. 'They're going to lose because of that same thing. That's not what people want to hear. He's trying to defend a man who's got a horrible record of abuse, abuse of women in particular.'
Van Hollen defended his stance in a CNN interview. 'You know, I will never apologize for defending the Constitution,' he said. 'In fact, it's the Trump administration and all his cronies who should apologize to the country for putting us through this unnecessary situation.'
What happened inside the Trump Administration?
In an Oval Office visit on April 15, 2025, Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials asserted that it was not possible for the Trump administration to 'facilitate' the return of Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador as the Supreme Court had ordered.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele mocked areporter for asking whether he would do so.'How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?' Bukele said, sitting beside Trump in the Oval Office. 'Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous.'
Trump, in turn, chided the assembled journalists, saying, 'They'd love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people.'
Bondi said only El Salvador could decide whether to return Bukele. 'If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,' said Bondi said. 'That's up for El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us.'
Yet, in a Friday press conference at the Justice Department, Bondi described the return of Abrego-Garcia as smooth and seamless. 'We want to thank President Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego-Garcia to the United States,' she said. 'Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country.'
Asked what had changed since the traffic stop in 2022, she lauded Trump. 'What has changed is Donald Trump is now president of the United States,' Bondi said, 'and our borders are again secure.'
In an unusual move, Bondi also described allegations against Abrego-Garcia that were not included in the indictment. She said that co-conspirators alleged that Abrego-Garcia 'solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor' and 'played a role in the murder of a rival gang member's mother.'
For decades, attorneys general from both parties and state and local prosecutors have generally accused defendants of crimes only for which a grand jury indicted them. Discussing other potential crimes has long been regarded as an abuse of prosecutorial power, risking unfair harm to defendants' reputations.
A former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity, citing fears of retaliation, said that Bondi often speaks as a partisan Trump loyalist, not a neutral law enforcement official.
'She says the president's name every time,' said the former DOJ official. 'She talks more like a politician, stumping for a candidate than an attorney general who is out there talking independently. You can see that in the words she uses.'
Why did a top federal prosecutor in Tennessee resign?
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that people close to the matter said the indictment prompted the resignation of a veteran career prosecutor who headed the criminal division at the U.S. attorney's office where the case was filed. The Journal did not name the prosecutor.
However, days after Abrego-Garcia was indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville, Ben Schrader, the head of criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office in Nashville, resigned.
'Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee,' Schrader posted on LinkedIn. 'It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I've ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.'
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