U.S. Attorney Braden Boucek on Monday told The Tennessee Star that prosecutors in the Middle District of Tennessee are evaluating plans to appeal the Friday ruling by Obama-appointed District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw, who dropped the federal human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, determining the Department of Justice (DOJ) “failed to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness.”
“The undisputed evidence shows that the decision to charge Abrego was made by a career prosecutor based solely on the facts and the substantial evidence that a serious crime had been committed and deserved prosecution,” said Boucek (pictured above).
He told The Star, “While we respectfully disagree with the decision to dismiss this case, we respect the judicial process, and we are currently evaluating an appeal.”
The statement from the federal prosecutor, who was confirmed as the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee by the U.S. Senate late last year, follows a similar statement from a DOJ spokesman last week.
Within hours of Crenshaw’s decision, the DOJ spokesman told The Star, “Another activist judge has placed politics above public safety. The judge’s order is wrong and dangerous, and we will appeal.”
Crenshaw determined in his ruling that, despite Abrego Garcia’s attorneys providing insufficient evidence to determine vindictiveness occurred, the Trump administration simultaneously failed to “rebut the presumption of vindictiveness,” which the judge established last year while citing an interview by Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
According to Crenshaw’s ruling, “Blanche ‘revealed that the government started ‘investigating’ Abrego after ‘a judge in Maryland . . . questioned that decision.’”
During his June 6, 2025 appearance on Fox News, Blanche actually stated:
The president and the Department of Justice, since January 20, have been doing everything that we can to deport criminals that are here illegally, and that’s what we did with this man. We deported him, we got him out of here, and a judge in Maryland, and many members of Congress – we had a Senator fly down to meet with him – questioned that decision, and said no he’s just a family man. We said okay, we’ll look into it.
When we started looking into it, and we have great law enforcement officers and prosecutors, who started studying this man and investigating him. What we found is that we were right. We were right. He is a criminal who should be deported.
At the end of the day, we have a responsibility to protect the American people and to keep our country safe, so he was indicted, he was indicted on very serious charges because of very serious conduct that we learned about during our investigation, and so he’s returned, but he’s not returned for any other reason than to face justice, period.”
The judge’s ruling also omitted references to reporting by The Star, which confirmed for the first time that the “Biden-era FBI” instructed Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) troopers to release Abrego Garcia at the conclusion of the November 2022 traffic stop that served as the basis of the federal indictment.
Mark Pulliam, a retired partner at a major law firm who attended the February evidentiary hearing in the Abrego Garcia case that led Crenshaw to drop the charges, predicted the judge’s decision would not survive review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District.
“The testimony was undisputed that (1) Abrego Garcia’s stop by the Tennessee state police came to the attention of Nashville federal law enforcement authorities due to the reporting of The Tennessee Star, and (2) the decision to seek a grand jury indictment for human smuggling was made locally,” Pulliam said.
Pulliam also predicted the defense’s strategy to prove vindictiveness performance would become an “Achilles Heel” for Abrego Garcia during an appeal.
He stated, “local prosecutors consulted with DOJ officials in DC, per policy for high visibility cases, but no witness testified to any influence by Todd Blanche, Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi, et cetera.”
Pulliam additionally argued that Crenshaw was wrong to issue his ruling based on the presumption of vindictiveness, which he said is typically reserved for “post-trial retaliation,” and because Blanche’s comments in the cable news interview were “tenuous.”
He told The Star, “In any event, the witness debunked any but-for influence by Blanche or others.”
During the evidentiary hearing, witnesses for the DOJ testified that they began working on the case against Abrego Garcia after reviewing news reports from The Star. Last year, The Star was recognized for its reporting on Abrego Garcia with the Dao Prize for Best Local Journalism.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “US Atty Braden Bouchek” by Voices for Victims.
Yes, this ruling must be appealed. From facts presented, the judge ruled along his philosophical agenda not the law. File the appeal immediately and incarcerate the illegal.