Judge Sets Nov. 16 Oath Date for Chicago U.S. Attorney
District Judge April Perry called Andrew Boutros' prior timeline 'hard to credit' and ordered him and three colleagues to testify regarding grand jury transcripts.
By Rafael Bailey ·
Andrew Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for Chicago, must take the stand under oath on Nov. 16, according to a court order issued by U.S. District Judge April Perry on Monday. The judge set the date for Boutros and three other prosecutors involved in the "Broadview Six" case to appear in her courtroom. Perry specified that the word "must" in her order is mandatory in the legal sense.
The testimony will focus on grand jury transcripts, the redactions made to those documents, and the accuracy of statements previously made to the court. Perry questioned Boutros' earlier claim that he remained unaware of staff wrongdoing until April. She described that denial as "hard to credit" and "nearly unfathomable" in her seven-page ruling.
Perry's order followed closely on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Douglas DePodesta, the former FBI field office chief in Chicago. DePodesta sued Boutros and other officials in the Trump administration's Justice Department. He alleged that Boutros falsely attributed the failures of the prosecution to him, a dynamic that ultimately led to DePodesta's resignation in July.
The underlying case involved six protesters arrested in September 2025 outside an immigration holding facility in Broadview. That period coincided with Operation Midway Blitz. Prosecutors charged the group with conspiring to impede a federal agent after a crowd pushed and damaged the agent's SUV. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of six years. Most defendants had ties to local Democratic politics, which observers noted raised questions about selective prosecution.
The prosecution collapsed on May 21 after Perry reviewed the grand jury transcripts. She stated that the alleged misconduct left her "incredibly shocked." The discovery led her to consider naming a special prosecutor to investigate federal wrongdoing.
That potential path faces a new obstacle. On Friday, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the third-highest ranking official at the Justice Department, intervened in the matter. He asked Perry for clarity on a deadline that had arrived for prosecutors to hand over records she sought weeks earlier. Woodward insisted that the United States had not agreed to provide the specific information the judge requested.
