A judge slammed Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem over 'troubling' remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Also on DU: Trump administration is racing to deport Abrego Garcia ahead of criminal proceedings
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Source: Politico
A judge slammed Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem over ‘troubling’ remarks about Kilmar Abrego Garcia
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw ordered the administration to warn every DOJ and DHS employee against improper statements regarding Abrego, who’s facing smuggling charges.
By Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney
10/27/2025 08:05 PM EDT
A federal judge took Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to task Monday for their incendiary, out-of-court statements about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran native who was illegally deported from the U.S. to his home country before being brought back to face immigrant-smuggling charges.
U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw ruled the Trump Cabinet members violated a local court rule limiting comments by government officials relating to an ongoing criminal case. Crenshaw stopped short of issuing a gag order against future comments about Abrego. However, the judge ordered prosecutors to notify every employee at DOJ and DHS about the existing rule restricting public statements about pending cases.
“Government employees have made extrajudicial statements that are troubling, especially where many of them are exaggerated if not simply inaccurate,” wrote Crenshaw, an Obama appointee based in Nashville. “These statements made allegations regarding Abrego’s ‘character or reputation’ and expressed government officials’ views on Abrego’s ‘guilt or innocence.’”
Crenshaw said Noem violated the rule by declaring that Abrego is a “MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator.” And the judge said Bondi ran afoul of the rule by stating that Abrego played “a significant role in an alien smuggling ring … [that] this was his full-time job, not a contractor … [that] [h]e was a smuggler of humans and children and women … [and that] [h]e made over 100 trips.”
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Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/27/pam-bondi-kristi-noem-comments-kilmar-abrego-garcia-00624342
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