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

Friday, the sudden return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States to face federal charges of smuggling of migrants across the country was a triumph of messaging for the Trump administration.

The news has diverted public attention from a series of unanimous justice decisions – in particular a decision of the Supreme Court – that President Donald Trump did not have the power to hold and unilaterally expel individuals towards foreign prisons without examining a judge.

And the allegations against Abrego Garcia are overwhelming. A great federal jury found that the 29-year-old was an MS-13 member who had transported thousands of undocumented immigrants, including children, from Texas to States through the country for nine years. He would also have transported firearms and drugs, abused migrant women and was linked to an incident in Mexico where a semi-trailer canceled and killed 50 migrants.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer representative of Abrego-Garcia, said on Saturday that he had planned to meet his client for the first time on Sunday, but refused to comment more.

A former senior law manager who spoke under the guise of anonymity, citing the fear of reprisals, said that he had been struck by the large quantity of resources that the MJ put in investigation into Abrego Garcia.

“It is strange that they use all these people to go after a low level driver,” said the manager. “Usually we used the driver to continue the coyotes and more if we could. But they really wanted to get this guy and they seem to have found a path. ”

In A telephone interview With Kristen Welker from NBC News on Saturday, Trump praised the indictment of Abrego Garcia and predicted that it would be easy for federal prosecutors to condemn him. “I think it should be,” he said. “It should be.”

Multiple questions about Abrego Garcia, the case against him, and political benefits remain unanswered.

Will Democrats pay a political prize?

For months, the lawyers of Abrego Garcia, his wife and certain Democrats, denied that he was a member of the Gang MS-13. They generally portrayed him as a Maryland construction worker and said he was carrying colleagues when a soldier from the state of Tennessee arrested him on the Interstate 40 on November 30, 2022.

The accusation act depicts a different image: Abrego Garcia transported nine Hispanic males without identification or luggage in a chevrolet suburb. Prosecutors allege that he “knowingly and falsely” told the soldier that they “had been in Saint-Louis for two weeks by building” and returned to Maryland.

However, the data from the license plates reader showed that the suburbs have not been near Saint-Louis for twelve months. Instead, it was in Houston where, according to prosecutors, Abrego Garcia had picked up the men. The vehicle did not carry neither tools nor construction equipment, but its rear loading area had been modified with makeshift seats to transport more passengers.

The apparent force of the government’s case could rekindle the debate among the Democrats on the risks of focusing on the case of Abrego Garcia. For weeks, Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland and other Democrats stressed that their criticisms aimed at Trump’s decision to unilaterally deporting Abrego Garcia without judicial supervision, not a defense of Abrego Garcia himself.

When Welker asked About Van HollenPresident Trump made fun of the senator and said the defense of Abrego Garcia would turn against the Democrats.

“He’s a loser. The guy is a loser,” said Trump, referring to Van Hollen. “They will lose because of the same thing. This is not what people want to hear. He tries to defend a man who has a horrible file of abuse, of abuse of women in particular. ”

Van Hollen defended his position in a CNN interview. “You know, I will never apologize for having defended the Constitution,” he said. “In fact, it is the Trump administration and all its friends who should apologize to the country for having put us in this unnecessary situation.”

What happened inside the Trump administration?

During an oval office visit on April 15, 2025, Trump, Prosecutor General Pam Bondi and other officials of the Trump administration said that it was not possible for the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia du Salvador as the Supreme Court had ordered.

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, made fun of a journalist to ask him if he would. “How can I return it to the United States? As if I pass it to the United States?” Bukele said,, Sitting next to Trump in the oval office. “Of course, I’m not going to do it. The question is absurd. “

Trump, in turn, reprimanded the journalists together, saying: “They would like to make a criminal in our country. They are sick people. “

Bondi said only El Salvador could decide to return Bukele. “If they want to return it, we would make it easier, which means providing an airplane,” said Bondi. “It is in sight for El Salvador if they want to return it. It’s not for us.”

However, during a Friday press conference at the Ministry of Justice, Bondi described the return of Abrego Garcia as fluid and transparent. “We would like to thank President Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States,” she said. “Our government presented an arrest warrant in El Salvador, and they agreed to return it to our country.”

Asked what had changed since the traffic stop in 2022, she praised Trump. “What has changed is that Donald Trump is now President of the United States,” said Bondi, “and our borders are safe again.”

In an unusual decision, Bondi also described allegations against Abrego Garcia which were not included in the indictment. She said the co-conspirators allegedly allegedly allegedly, “said Naked photographs and videos of a minor” and “played a role in the murder of the mother of a member of a rival gang”.

For decades, the prosecutors general of the parties and the prosecutors of the state and local generally accused the defendants of crimes for which a large jury charged them. Discussing other potential crimes has long been considered an abuse of prosecution, risking prejudice to the reputation of defendants.

A former official of the Ministry of Justice, who asked for anonymity, citing fears of reprisals, said that Bondi often speaks as a supporting partisan of Trump, not as an official of the application of neutral laws.

“She says the name of the president every time,” said the former MJ official. “She speaks more like a politician, without a quarrel a candidate general who speaks independently. You can see him in the words she uses.”

Why has a main federal prosecutor in Tennessee resigned?

THE Wall Street Journal Reported Friday, people close to the case said that the indictment had resulted in the resignation of an ancient career prosecutor who led the criminal division to the Office of the American Prosecutor where the case was filed. The newspaper did not appoint the prosecutor.

However, a few days after Abrego Garcia was charged by a great federal jury in Nashville, Ben Schrader, head of the criminal division of the American prosecutor’s office in Nashville, resigned.

“Earlier in the day, after almost 15 years as an assistant lawyer in the United States, I resigned from his post as head of the criminal division at the Office of the American Prosecutor for the intermediate district of Tennessee,” said Schrader Posted on LinkedIn. “It was an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice, where the only description of the job I have ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all my colleagues at the office of the American prosecutor and through the department, the best as they seek to do for the beage of the people. ”.

Asked about the resignation of Schrader by NBC News, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said that he is not commenting on staff changes. Schrader, reached by NBC News by SMS on his mobile phone, sent a two -words response when asked why he had resigned:: “No comments.”