By Katelyn Polantz, CNN(CNN) — A federal judge says he believes the immigrant defendant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration wrongly sent to El Salvador, may have been targeted with a criminal charge by the Justice Department this year out of vindictiveness. “The Government had a significant stake in retaliating against Abrego’s success” suing the Trump administration after his wrongful removal to El Salvador in March, Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. of the Middle District of Tennessee wrote on Friday. The Trump administration initially resisted returning Abrego Garcia to the US, after it sent him on a plane in March to a prison for terrorists against previous immigration proceeding orders. The most problematic statement for the Justice Department, however, came from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Crenshaw wrote. A Justice Department official declined to comment to CNN.