The Obama-appointed federal judge who this week authorized the release of suspected MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia donated money dozens of times to Democrats, spending sizable sums totaling approximately $43,000, according to a Washington Examiner review of campaign finance records.
Federal Election Commission filings show that Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., the United States district court judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s criminal case in Tennessee, has given generously to a host of Democratic causes over the course of his legal career.
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While an attorney at the Nashville-based law firm of Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, now merged with lobbying powerhouse Holland & Knight, Crenshaw donated exclusively to Democratic candidates, such as ex-Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) and then-congressional hopeful Brett Carter are both Waller alumni.
According to financial disclosure receipts, Crenshaw’s big-dollar donations, dating back to 1994 and as recent as 2014, one year before his judicial appointment, include $16,450 and $4,000 in total contributions supporting the Tennessee Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee, respectively.
Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, donated $4,600 directly to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and $2,000 earmarked for the Obama Victory Fund.
As a lawyer specializing in labor law, Crenshaw also cut checks boosting the 2018 reelection of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and the failed 2004 presidential bid of former Rep. John Edwards (D-NC), among other notable names in the Democratic Party.
Kaine recently requested $1.5 million in federal funding for an activist organization that helps illegal immigrants find jobs through a migrant work placement program. The group in question has organized pro-migrant protests as part of “resistance” efforts against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Edwards ran on “fundamentally overhauling” the U.S. immigration system by providing a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens and clearing the backlog of background checks on migrants already in the United States.
In 2014, the last year he was contributing to political campaigns, Crenshaw gave $5,200 to the reelection run of disgraced former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who was later accused of sexually harassing several women, and another $5,200 to the 10,000 Lakes Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee established by Franken’s campaign staff.
This week, Crenshaw issued a court order freeing Abrego Garcia, an alleged wife-beater and gangbanger facing federal human smuggling charges, from pretrial detention.
Abrego Garcia, who was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals pending a criminal trial, allegedly transported hordes of illegal immigrants within the United States.
In a 37-page memorandum opinion, Crenshaw said Wednesday he did not find “any evidence that there is something in Abrego’s history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention.”
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“The pieces of evidence the Government cites to, taken alone or together, warrant a finding that Abrego is, at best, a low risk of nonappearance,” Crenshaw said of Abrego Garcia’s flight risk. Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, evaded federal law enforcement detection for years until his apprehension in 2019.
On whether Abrego Garcia is dangerous, Crenshaw weighed the protective orders his wife had filed against him in previous domestic abuse cases, witness statements suggesting he carried guns and drugs during the human smuggling operation, and his documented ties to the violent Salvadoran gang MS-13.
Noting these factors, Crenshaw ruled that all of the evidence presented “is a far cry from showing that Abrego is such a danger to others or the community that he cannot be released with conditions.”
Crenshaw’s decision came around the same time Judge Paula Xinis, a district court judge from Maryland who is presiding over Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation case, ordered the Trump administration to return him, upon release in Tennessee, to out-of-jail Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision in Maryland, where he was unlawfully living. Such supervised release consists of periodic check-ins with immigration authorities.
Xinis, another Obama appointee, also ordered that Abrego Garcia be given 72 hours’ notice if the Trump administration intends to initiate removal proceedings against him, meaning he cannot be immediately deported. She specified in an accompanying opinion that the delay is “so that Abrego Garcia may assert claims of credible fear or seek any other relief available.”
Xinis previously expressed serious concerns with the Department of Homeland Security potentially arranging for Abrego Garcia’s immediate deportation to a country other than his native El Salvador, where he was initially deported in violation of a 2019 court order allowing for his deportation anywhere but El Salvador, absent advance notice affording him a chance to challenge the removal.
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Xinis told federal officials she was “deeply concerned if there is not some restraint on you, Mr. Abrego will be on a plane to another country with no notice to his lawyers.”
The Washington Examiner contacted Crenshaw for comment.