Newly released emails reveal that top officials in the Trump administration went to great lengths to falsely label Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang leader. This effort unfolded even as the administration faced mounting pressure to return Garcia to the U.S. after wrongly deporting him to El Salvador.
The emails, handed over to Congress by a whistleblower from the Justice Department, shed new light on the administration’s desperate attempts to create a case against Garcia, despite a lack of evidence. These emails expose how the Trump team was determined to brand Garcia as a dangerous criminal, even though they knew the claim was baseless.
The whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, a 15-year DOJ veteran, provided the emails after he was fired in the spring for raising concerns about the illegal deportation of Garcia to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. Garcia, who had been granted protected status in 2019, was deported on March 15 due to an “error.” Yet, Trump refused to bring him back to the U.S. for months, even defying a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. The justification? Garcia’s alleged MS-13 ties.
On June 24, Reuveni filed a whistleblower complaint accusing top DOJ officials of misconduct. One of the most shocking revelations from this complaint was that a DOJ leader, Emil Bove, told colleagues that when deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, they might need to ignore court orders and essentially tell the courts to “fuck you.” However, the complaint also delved into how officials tried to back up their claims about Garcia, only to fall short.
The newly released emails, which Reuveni’s attorneys submitted to Senator Dick Durbin in response to his inquiries, show how the DOJ scrambled to establish that Garcia was an MS-13 “leader.” A key email from March 31 reveals a conversation where James Percival, a senior Homeland Security official, asked if they could claim Garcia was a “leader” of MS-13.
“If we can get a declaration to that effect, yes,” Reuveni replied, warning that the claim should not be made unless they had hard evidence.
Despite this caution, an unnamed ICE official responded that no such evidence had been found to prove Garcia was a leader. The official admitted that they could only confirm Garcia was a “verified member” of MS-13, based on weak evidence from his 2019 arrest. The ruling used “double hearsay,” relying on unverified information from an unnamed source. This same officer was later indicted for misconduct in a separate case, further casting doubt on the reliability of the evidence against Garcia.
Nevertheless, Trump and his administration continued to call Garcia a gang member and even a terrorist. Vice President JD Vance went as far as labeling him a “high-level gang member in MS-13,” despite the emails showing no proof of such a claim.
The emails also expose efforts to falsely assert that Garcia was safe in the Salvadoran prison, CECOT. Reuveni raised concerns, asking for guarantees that Garcia wouldn’t be harmed, but received little assurance. The truth came out when Garcia confirmed he was tortured and beaten in the prison.
Reuveni repeatedly warned top officials about the lack of evidence supporting the MS-13 claim, and even refused to sign legal briefs accusing Garcia of being a gang member. For this, Reuveni was placed on administrative leave and ultimately fired for “failing to zealously advocate” for the administration’s position. In reality, his “crime” was insisting on sticking to the facts.
The entire case stinks. Despite the lack of evidence, the administration insisted that only El Salvador could decide whether Garcia would be returned. Then, after months of delays, the White House revealed it could bring him back—but only once they had a supposed case to prosecute him for migrant smuggling in Tennessee.
Even more troubling, DOJ agreed to release a violent felon from custody in the U.S. in exchange for his testimony against Garcia. This dangerous move seems to be an attempt to build any case possible to prove that Trump’s narrative about Garcia being a criminal was right all along.
When the DOJ dismissed Reuveni’s whistleblower claims as “utterly false,” the new emails proved otherwise. These records clearly back up Reuveni’s account and show why he spoke out in the first place: to prevent illegal actions and to protect Garcia from further harm.
Andrea Meza, a lawyer representing Reuveni, said, “He refused to break the law for political officials who violated court orders and sent a man to be tortured.”
This scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. The Trump administration’s relentless pursuit of a false narrative against Garcia is an abuse of power that goes far beyond one case. As more comes to light, the full extent of the corruption is sure to be even darker.
