Crime & Law

Duckworth, Durbin Call on Andrew Boutros to Step Down as Chicago’s U.S. Attorney Amid ‘Chaos,’ ‘Dysfunction’

Illinois’ two U.S. senators are calling on Chicago’s U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to resign his position, citing “chaos” and “deep internal dysfunction” after accusations of prosecutorial misconduct by his office tanked the “Broadview Six” protester case.

U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin issued a joint statement on Tuesday morning, joining the growing calls for Boutros — a Trump administration appointee — to step down. 

“Andrew Boutros’s time as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois has been riddled with chaos, deep internal dysfunction, and alleged misconduct,” the senators said. “He must resign, and there must be an open, transparent, and nonpartisan search to nominate the next U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.”

Already, Illinois Lt. Gov and U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton, Congressional candidate Daniel Biss and attorneys for the former Broadview defendants have called on Boutros to resign his position.

Those calls come after Boutros last month offered a public apology for his prosecutors’ conduct in the Broadview case after it was revealed assistant U.S. attorneys in his office had allegedly engaged in significant misconduct during grand jury proceedings last October.

Transcripts of those hearings have not yet been released publicly, but whatever happened during those secret proceedings led to defense attorneys accusing prosecutors of a “scandal” and a cover-up and a federal judge saying her trust in the prosecutors handling the case had been “broken.”

Those assistant U.S. attorneys allegedly held improper communications with grand jurors outside of the court proceedings and excused some jurors who disagreed with the government’s theory of the case.

Boutros has claimed he had no knowledge of that alleged misconduct until late April when his office tossed out the top conspiracy count against the Broadview defendants. But his office still planned to go to trial on misdemeanor charges before Boutros personally appeared in court to dismiss all remaining charges once his office’s conduct became publicly known.

He has since announced “sweeping” reforms to his office’s grand jury procedures and said the Department of Justice has taken “swift action related to internal personnel matters” after the Broadview case fell apart.

Boutros has additionally come under fire after the DOJ launched an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple reports. That investigation has reportedly been referred to Boutros’ office, though he has claimed his office “has not opened—and has never opened—a criminal investigation” into Carroll.

A longtime litigator and former assistant U.S. attorney, Boutros was appointed to his role last April by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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