“If the facts did not add up, we would have ceased to move forward,” Saoud testified. “The case just kept getting stronger.”

The court proceedings unfolded on Thursday for a rare hearing established after U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ordered the government to defend why the human smuggling case brought against Abrego Garcia wasn’t a form of vindictive prosecution brought in light of his court-ordered return to the United States last summer.

Saoud said she first became aware of the stop in April last year after receiving a news article from the Tennessee Star and denied being directed by superiors to pursue charges, according to the Associated Press. On cross-examination, she acknowledged the matter drew heightened attention largely because of Abrego Garcia’s public profile, agreeing the case was notable “because of who the defendant was” and that he “was in the news all the time at that point.”

The hearing is part of a legal fight over whether the prosecution was justified or vindictive following Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation to El Salvador and subsequent court-ordered return to the U.S.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire also testified that he ultimately decided to bring the charges after reviewing evidence tied to the 2022 stop, during which Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding while transporting nine passengers.

Although the encounter ended with only a warning, McGuire said the circumstances resembled smuggling cases he had previously prosecuted, citing the lack of luggage, the travel route, and the vehicle’s alleged ties to someone with a smuggling background.

“I had previously prosecuted several human smuggling cases,” McGuire testified. When viewing the video from the traffic stop, he said he “was immediately struck by how similar what was being depicted in the body cam was to those investigations.”

On cross-examination, McGuire acknowledged that filing charges more than two years after the stop was “extraordinary” and said he had not previously been aware of the incident. He also confirmed he communicated regularly with senior Justice Department officials about the investigation’s progress but said no one instructed him to pursue the case or dictated what should be included in the indictment.

Still, he vehemently rejected the premise from the defense that the case was brought solely to punish Abrego Garcia out of frustration due to his return to the country amid a political battle over Trump’s deportation agenda. “I’m not going to do something that I think is wrong to keep my job,” McGuire testified when pressed about whether he felt pressure.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who entered the U.S. illegally as a teenager, has lived for years in Maryland with his American wife and child while under immigration supervision. A 2019 immigration order barred his deportation to El Salvador after a judge found he faced gang-related threats there.

Although Abrego Garcia has claimed his fear of returning to his home country was prompted by fears of gang violence in his home country, a transcript from a May 2019 immigration court hearing cited by the government in filings last month has made his story appear inconsistent with his original fears.

During that hearing, when asked if he feared persecution or torture in El Salvador, he altered his story to say he “would have fear about what they’re accusing be of, belonging to a gang.” The Trump administration has maintained Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member with a history of violence, including citations of a prior restraining order filed by his own wife.

After he was deported last year, the Supreme Court ruled the government must facilitate his return so his removal could be adjudicated. He was brought back to the U.S. and later indicted on human smuggling charges tied to the Tennessee stop. He has pleaded not guilty and is seeking dismissal of the case, arguing the prosecution was retaliatory.

Defense attorney David Patton said another Homeland Security office had known about the traffic stop earlier but did not pursue charges and closed its investigation before reopening the matter after the Supreme Court’s intervention.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, pointed to statements from an incarcerated witness, Jose Hernandez Reyes, who allegedly told agents he operated a smuggling network and used Abrego Garcia as a driver.

The judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s human smuggling case previously said some evidence suggested the prosecution “may be vindictive,” citing statements by Trump administration officials that raised concerns about motive.

In a late-December order, Crenshaw wrote that documents indicated McGuire may not have acted alone and that the decision to prosecute could have involved ranking DOJ officials in Washington, D.C., including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and his aide Aakash Singh.

Abrego Garcia entered the federal courthouse in Tennessee alongside his wife, a U.S. citizen, for the first time since a judge in Maryland ordered the U.S. to release him from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, following a drawn-out parallel civil matter involving the administration’s efforts to deport him to a third country.

ABREGO GARCIA TO REMAIN FREE FROM ICE CUSTODY AS JUDGE OKS TRAVEL FOR TENNESSEE HEARING

In the Maryland court, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has faulted the Trump administration for failing to secure a third country to send Abrego Garcia and has questioned why the government has not allowed his deportation to Costa Rica, a country defense attorneys say has willingly agreed to accept him.

Crenshaw did not rule from the bench on Thursday and gave the government and the defense 30 days to submit written arguments based on the testimony on Thursday.