Chicago City Council committee calls for resignation of U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros
A key Chicago City Council committee has joined the growing chorus calling for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to resign.
The City Council Ethics and Government Oversight Committee approved a resolution calling for Boutros, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to step down.
The Council said the mishandling of the "Broadview Six" case and irregularities with the grand jury product have undermined public trust in the office.
The full City Council will vote on the resolution later this month.
The resolution is nonbinding, as only the president has the power to remove a U.S. attorney from office.
In May, missteps by federal prosecutors compelled Boutros to personally appear in court to drop charges against the remaining "Broadview Six" protesters. The Broadview Six case involves a group of protesters who were arrested outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, last fall.
A little less than two weeks later, Boutros acknowledged having spoken to the October grand jury that would go on to indict the group later that day. The U.S. attorney's office framed the acknowledgement, contextualized in a five-page "special report," as a direct rebuttal to a defense attorney's assertion last week that Boutros himself had "personal contact" with the grand jury.
Instead, the report explained that Boutros decided to address three ongoing grand juries "given prior grand jury disturbances and potential tension" on Oct. 16, 2025, when the lead prosecutor excused grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case against the protesters.
Last week, Boutros said more than 1,000 grand jury presentations are under review after the dismissal of the Broadview Six case. Speaking to the media in Washington, D.C., at an unrelated news conference, Boutros said his office is scrutinizing prosecutorial conduct in cases that date back as far as 2007, as part of an effort to shore up confidence in the grand jury process.
Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
