Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth called on Tuesday for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to resign after the Broadview Six case collapsed, making the state’s top federal prosecutor the target of a public break with two of its most influential Democrats. The senators said his time leading the Northern District of Illinois had been marked by chaos, deep internal dysfunction and alleged misconduct.
The demand lands in the middle of a case that had already unraveled nearly two weeks earlier, when Boutros dismissed charges against six people accused in a September protest outside a suburban immigration facility. Prosecutors said a crowd pushed, scratched and otherwise damaged a federal agent’s SUV, but the case fell apart after U.S. District Judge April Perry described conduct by prosecutors that appeared improper and concealed.
That is why Boutros is being searched now: the resignation call follows a public collapse in a case that had already forced questions about how his office handled the prosecution. Durbin and Duckworth also pressed for an open, transparent and nonpartisan search for his successor, putting the focus not just on the dismissed case but on who should run the office next.
Perry said a prosecutor had improperly put her credibility on the line to support the criminal charges, that there were substantive communications with grand jurors outside the grand jury room, and that some grand jurors who did not agree with the case were excused. She also said prosecutors appeared to try to hide what happened by redacting it from a set of transcripts, a detail that cuts directly against Boutros’ claim that he only learned of the apparent misconduct in late April.
Boutros was temporarily appointed by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in April 2025, and when that appointment expired last summer, Chicago’s federal judges chose him to stay on a more permanent basis. The latest call for him to step down now joins Democratic Senate nominee Juliana Stratton and 9th Congressional District candidate Daniel Biss, with Stratton saying Boutros had undermined the credibility of his office and should resign or be fired.
The broader fight is no longer just about the Broadview Six. It is about whether the Northern District of Illinois can keep public trust while its top prosecutor faces accusations that his office mishandled a politically charged case and then moved too slowly to confront it.
