Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth called on Tuesday for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to resign after the Broadview Six case collapsed, the latest and sharpest rebuke for Chicago’s top federal prosecutor. They described his tenure as chaotic and said the office’s credibility had been damaged.
The demand landed nearly two weeks after Boutros dismissed the case on May 21, following a collapse tied to allegations of misconduct by prosecutors. The Broadview Six case grew out of a September protest outside a suburban immigration facility, where a crowd pushed, scratched and otherwise damaged a federal agent’s SUV before prosecutors charged six people from among the demonstrators.
Durbin and Duckworth said Boutros’s time leading the office had been “riddled with chaos, deep internal dysfunction, and alleged misconduct,” and they said he should step aside so there could be an open, transparent and nonpartisan search for his successor. Their call matters beyond one failed case because both senators have a traditional role in shaping who becomes Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, and they are now saying the office cannot regain trust under Boutros.
That pressure has grown because the public account of the case has not been clean. U.S. District Judge April Perry said a prosecutor improperly put her credibility on the line to support the criminal charges, described substantive communications with grand jurors outside the grand jury room, said grand jurors who did not agree with the case were excused, and said prosecutors appeared to try to hide what happened by redacting it from transcripts. Boutros has said he learned of the apparent misconduct only in late April, but Perry’s description left little doubt that the prosecution process itself was deeply compromised.
Juliana Stratton joined the calls for Boutros to go, saying he had undermined the credibility of his office and should resign or be fired. She also warned that professional standards must be followed so the public can trust the charges and conduct coming out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The rebuke now puts the office under even closer scrutiny as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was scheduled to testify before a House Appropriations subcommittee in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, with questions about what happened in the Broadview Six case still hanging over Chicago’s federal courthouse.
