Judge accuses Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros of violating court orders on sealed criminal charges

In what is being called an unprecedented day in Chicago's courts, the area's top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Andrew Boutros, was called before a judge Thursday for violating a secrecy order.

In U.S. District Court in Chicago on Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laura McNally said she wanted to look Boutros directly in the eye and tell him he violated court orders when he talked openly about a criminal case while information was still sealed. McNally spent about 20 minutes reprimanding Boutros.

Some indictments are sealed and kept from public view. This is so when police set out to arrest people, those people don't know they're being sought — making arrests safer.

Last Wednesday before all the suspects were picked up in a gang murder case, Boutros — whose own office asked for the seal — broke it.

On Wednesday, Boutros argued in a 14-page filing that that he believed the seal on the case would have been lifted by the time he spoke at a news conference in Washington alongside acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel.

Thus, he very publicly detailed the case.

The problem as that one suspect was still at large, and the seal life, while requested, had not been approved.

On Thursday, Judge McNally dressed down Boutros. She called his remarks on the case a "clear violation of the sealing order. The order was unambiguous."

Right before the hearing began, Boutros requested that the case be unsealed. But no formal motion was filed.

Regarding the request to unseal, Judge McNally said: "Fifteen minutes is not a reasonable time to assume a court will receive a request, consider it and issue a ruling. It is not reasonable to assume it would happen."

McNally also said her "goal is to emphasize the critical nature of sealing orders and remind leaders of DOJ that these sealing orders must be scrupulously followed…. Safety of community and law enforcement are why we have seals."

Of the news conference at which Boutros spoke about the charges, Judge McNally said, "You were aware, when you went up there, that there was a sealing order in place."

"Never seen it before," said CBS News Chicago Legal Analyst Irv Miller. "It had to be a substantial embarrassment to this United States attorney."

Boutros told the court: "This is all very regrettable. I take very seriously the orders of the court — always have, always will. The intentions were to comply with the order."

Boutros also said, "I thought when I landed in D.C., all three [suspects in the criminal case] would be in custody."

This is just the latest black eye for Boutros' office.

"It's one thing after another," said Miller, "whether it's credibility, mismanagement, not following court orders, it's a continuous stream that's happening on a daily basis, almost."

Boutros was also under fire just weeks ago for apparent misconduct in the "Broadview Six" prosecution.

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.

On Tuesday, the Chicago City Council Ethics and Government Oversight Committee approved a resolution calling for Boutros to step down. The resolution is nonbinding, as only the president has the power to remove a U.S. attorney from office.

More than 100 former members of the U.S. Attorney's office have also called for Boutros' resignation.

Why is this chain of events involving so many cases happening now? Miller said he doesn't know.

"I suspect a lot of it is because seasoned assistant U.S. attorneys, the guys who have been there for years and years, a lot of them left," said Miller.

Judge McNally said she does believe Boutros violated the court order on the seal. However, while she could have fined Boutros, held him in contempt, or jailed him, she did none of those things.

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.