US Attorney Andrew Boutros ordered to testify under oath about alleged 'Broadview Six' improprieties
Published in News & Features
CHICAGO — A federal judge on Monday ordered embattled U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and several underlings to testify under oath later this month about alleged misconduct in the failed “Broadview Six” case against a group of Operation Midway Blitz protesters.
Boutros, who is Chicago’s top federal law enforcement officer, must appear for live testimony on Nov. 16, said U.S. District Judge April Perry, who also ordered three assistant prosecutors, William Hogan, Matthew Skiba and Andres Almendarez, to testify.
The testimony will include grand jury transcripts at issue in the Broadview case, redactions made to those transcripts, and the “accuracy of statements” made to the court about any influence that Justice Department officials in Washington had over the charging decisions, Perry wrote in the order.
Perry said Boutros also will have to answer questions about his statements to her on May 21, the day he announced he was dropping all charges, and his office’s “repeated failures to correct the court’s stated misconceptions” about what had been redacted from the transcripts that were given to her.
“The Court will also accept testimony from any former or current employee of the U.S. Attorney’s Office or federal law enforcement agency who has first-hand knowledge about the above events and who wants to ensure a full and accurate record is presented to the Court,” Perry wrote.
In her order, Perry also blasted the Department of Justice for what she said could be construed as a last-minute attempt to “inject unnecessary delay into these proceedings” by having Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward intervene on Friday, the day that the U.S. attorney’s office had been scheduled to hand over discovery materials to her.
Instead, Woodward filed a defiant brief declaring the government “has not agreed to cooperate” with any investigation into wrongdoing and asking Perry to provide justification for it.
In her order, Perry said that by inserting himself into the case, Woodward has strengthened the argument that the Attorney General’s office is compromised and cannot supervise an investigation of any special counsel into potential contempt charges.
Perry also is not letting the government off the hook on providing the promised discovery, ordering it produced by 5 p.m. Thursday.
The order marked yet another dramatic twist in the long-running legal drama of the Broadview Six, which stemmed from the charging of six protesters during Operation Midway Blitz a year ago.
The case collapsed in May amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and Perry has since begun an inquiry that could lead to sanctions or even appointment of special counsel to investigate criminal contempt charges.
Perry had ordered the U.S. attorney’s office to turn over her discovery requests by Friday, including written communications with anyone outside the office regarding “investigatory or charging decisions” as well as an email sent to Boutros attaching an expedited transcript of grand jury proceedings.
Instead, the two assistant U.S. attorneys who had been handling the case for Boutros’ office since the summer, Nathaniel Whalen and Diane MacArthur, both filed motions earlier Friday seeking to withdraw. Woodward then filed a brief arguing the Justice Department did not construe her minute order “as a directive creating any obligation to produce any information” because it used terms like “ask” and “request.”
Perry was obviously not pleased with what she called the “professed confusion.”
“To be clear: the factual basis for the Court’s inquiry is not a mystery to anyone who has had any involvement with this case or even conducted a cursory review of the docket,” the judge wrote in her order.
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