Attorney General Pam Bondi was caught off guard answering questions during a press conference about the return of a Maryland dad to the U.S. after he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador.
The Trump administration found itself mired in scandal earlier this year after the White House was forced to admit it had deported then-29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia to his home country as the result of a clerical error.
Abrego Garcia, whom the White House has repeatedly claimed but failed to prove has ties to the notorious MS-13 criminal gang, has now been returned to the United States to face charges of human smuggling.
During Saturday’s press conference, Bondi proceeded to reel off a series of horrific allegations against the El Salvador native. She claimed he’d been involved in the illicit trafficking of weapons, drugs, and human beings, including women and children, and that he’d taken part in the killing of multiple people.
Bondi also alleged Abrego Garcia had been accused by one of his associates of soliciting sexual images from a minor.
Listening to the attorney general’s statements, one reporter asked why, if the Maryland dad had been involved in such heinous crimes, is he only facing a limited set of charges for human smuggling now?
Bondi responded by dodging the question entirely, instead reminding the reporter of the severity of the charges the Department of Justice has in the end elected to bring against him.
“We were clear to say that he is charged with very serious charges of alien smuggling, and again, there were children involved in that,” she said. “You know, human trafficking, not only in our country but in our world, is very, very real. It’s very dangerous.”
The present charges against Abrego Garcia are understood to have resulted from a traffic stop carried out in Tennessee back in 2022.
Asked what had changed about Abrego Garcia’s circumstances since, and why charges are only being brought three years after the fact, Bondi was pithy in her response: “Donald Trump is president.”
