The Chicago Council of Lawyers has submitted a letter to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) of the Supreme Court of Illinois requesting an investigation into the conduct of attorneys involved in the federal prosecution in United States v. Rabbitt, et al., arising from events in Broadview, Illinois.
CCL’s letter to the ARDC is copied below.
Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission
Supreme Court of Illinois
130 East Randolph Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Re: Broadview Federal Prosecution
Dear Commissioners:
We are writing to join in the prior requests by others that the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (“ARDC”) investigate attorneys Andrew Boutos, William Hogan and Sheri Mecklenburg for misconduct arising out of their conduct in the grand jury proceedings in United States v. Rabbitt, et al., No. 25 CR 693, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. This request for an investigation is based on the public record.
In our view, it is critical that the ARDC investigate this request, not only to hold the Illinois attorneys involved responsible for their misconduct in this case with the grand jury, but also to determine whether there is a continuing effort to cover up evidence of that misconduct, as well as possible illegal and unethical participation
in the acts in question by attorneys from the Department of Justice, both in Illinois and in its Washington DC headquarters, that is part of a larger, nationwide pattern of unethical political prosecutions by the leadership of the Department of Justice under President Trump. The reputation of the legal profession and public faith in the integrity of government lawyers and the legal system generally have been profoundly injured by the misconduct cited herein and by public reports of efforts to cover up the misconduct; it is furthermore becoming clear that no redress will come from leadership of the Department of Justice, and it is unclear whether courts, whose jurisdiction is limited to the individual case before them, can provide the comprehensive redress necessary to restore public confidence. Thus, it falls to the ARDC, as the body charged by the Illinois Supreme Court with the regulation of attorney discipline, to take appropriate action as to each of these attorneys.
1. The Incident in Question
On September 26, 2025, employees of the United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) were conducting operations out of a building in Broadview Illinois, a processing facility being used for detention of people by ICE (the “Broadview Facility”). An ICE employee was driving to work at about 7:45am. Protesters were present outside the Broadview Facility, as they had been on many prior occasions. The protesters were blocking an intersection, but when a vehicle approached, the protesters permitted Broadview police to open a path through the protest for the vehicle. This was the same procedure that had been followed on prior occasions at protests outside the Broadview Facility.
When the ICE employee arrived at an intersection near the Broadview Facility where he needed to turn west onto Harvard Street, instead of waiting for the Broadview police to clear the crosswalk, he began turning at a slow speed directly into the crowd. The crowd reacted by resisting the progress of the vehicle and pounding on and attempting to impede it. The incident was provoked by the ICE agent’s actions in driving into the crowd without waiting for a path to be cleared. A path was eventually cleared for the vehicle, and it made its way onto the Broadview Facility site.
2. The Defendants’ Indictment
Approximately a month later, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois indicted six individuals, whom it said had stood in front of the vehicle and pounded on its hood resisting its passage. Five of those individuals were locally elected officials or candidates; all were affiliated with the Democratic Party. They were charged with one count of felony conspiracy for preventing a government officer from discharging his duties under 18 USC 372. They were each also charged with one count of a misdemeanor of interfering with a federal agent under 18 USC 111(a)(1) & (2). The case was assigned to Judge April Perry and was eventually set for a jury trial scheduled to begin on May 26, 2026.
In March, the Government announced that it was dismissing the charges against two of the Defendants with prejudice. In pretrial motions, the remaining Defendants requested the Judge to order the disclosure of grand jury transcripts either to them or to the Court to determine whether the grand jury had been properly instructed as to the law. The Defendants also requested production of communications between the U.S. Attorney in Chicago and their superiors in the DC headquarters of the Department of Justice, which they contended were relevant to the Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss the indictment as a vindictive prosecution. The Government responded by offering to produce redacted copies of the grand jury transcripts for the Court’s in-chambers review, which they produced on April 23rd to the Court. At a hearing on April 24th the Court asked the Government to bring an unredacted copy of the grand jury transcripts for the Court’s review, together with a copy of any presentations or documents shown to the grand jury summarizing the law for the Court’s review.
Thereafter, on May 7th, the Government announced that it was dropping the felony conspiracy count against the remaining Defendants and that it would proceed to try them on the remaining misdemeanor charges. The Government then also contended that any issues related to the grand jury proceedings were moot, because a grand jury indictment was not required to bring misdemeanor charges.
3. The Prosecutorial Misconduct
On May 21st a hearing was held on the Defendants’ motions to require disclosure of the prosecutor’s colloquies with the grand jury. At that hearing Judge Perry announced that she had reviewed the unredacted copy of the grand jury transcripts and that she was shocked by what she saw in the way of prosecutorial misconduct. She summarized the issues she saw as involving (1) improper prosecutorial vouching to the grand jurors, (2) improper prosecutorial communications of a substantive nature with grand jurors outside of the grand jury room (3) improperly excusing grand jurors who disagreed with the government’s case from the deliberations on the indictment and (4) that all evidence of those transgressions had been improperly redacted from the portions of the grand jury transcripts previously provided to the court, apparently in an effort to hide the misconduct from her. The Judge also indicated that she thought the Defendants might want to refile their earlier motion to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution, and seek discovery related to communications with the DC office. The Judge stated on the record that the potential existed for “sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct and for potential ethical violations, including lack of candor to the Court.”
After the Defendants briefly conferred, they asked the Court to vacate the May 26 trial date, which the Court did, and a briefing schedule was set concerning potential motions related to the prosecutorial misconduct. The final issue was whether to unseal the transcript of the April 23rd hearing. A one-hour recess was taken to give the prosecutors time to confer with their superiors about that issue. When the hearing resumed at 1pm, U.S.Attorney Andrew Boutros personally appeared and announced that the government would be dismissing the case with prejudice, and he denied that his attorneys had attempted to hide anything from or mislead Judge Perry. He admitted that he had learned earlier of the misconduct in the grand jury and that that was the reason the government had dropped the felony count at the end of April, in an effort to make the misconduct before the grand jury irrelevant.
Briefing on a set of motions related to prosecutorial misconduct is currently proceeding.
4. The Possible Continuing Effort to Cover Up the Involvement of Other DOJ Attorneys in DC in Misconduct in Question
Following the May 21st hearing, the Defendants requested that their attorneys’ fees be paid by the government because of its bad faith prosecution of the case. Such requests are relatively rare. What is even more rare is for the government to voluntarily agree to pay such fees without opposing the motion. However, here, rather than opposing that motion, the government agreed to pay the Defendants’ attorneys’ fees (though the amount to be paid is still disputed).
It appears the government attorneys may have done so in an effort to prevent disclosure of communications between the attorneys in DOJ headquarters in DC with attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago, concerning the handling of the Broadview prosecution and grand jury. If that was the motive and the Illinois attorneys are attempting to cover up the involvement of DC attorneys in the decisions in question, we believe that would constitute a violation of the Illinois attorneys’ obligations to report violations under both Himmel and the Department of Justice’s own manual and regulations.
Moreover, our concern is that this case may be part of a much larger set of ethical and legal violations related to a number of other seemingly political prosecutions that the Department of Justice attorneys are believed to have been involved in bringing across the country.
The misconduct in the Broadview prosecution has also resulted in over 100 former federal prosecutors who served in the Northern District of Illinois signing on to a statement that cited the Broadview misconduct as merely the latest evidence of serious ethical problems within the Office of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. It has also led to other defendants seeking dismissal of charges against them based on the misconduct in the Broadview case and its resultant impact on the presumption of regularity in the conduct of Justice Department officials. Even if these motions are denied, it is not unexpected that other defendants will continue to try this tack, taking up the Court’s time and further undermining public confidence in the justice system.
5. The Ethical and Legal Violations
There is a substantial basis to investigate whether Mr. Boutros, Mr. Hogan and/or Ms. Mecklenburg violated Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4. The same conduct may also substantiate violations of Rules 3.3 and 3.8.
Rule 8.4 prohibits engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, or misrepresentation, and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The prosecutorial misconduct described by Judge Perry clearly constitutes conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Personally “vouching” to a grand jury, having substantive communications with grand jurors outside the jury room and excusing grand jurors who oppose the indictment from participating are all well established improper and illegal activities. Such misconduct should have resulted in the immediate dismissal of the charges by the U.S. Attorney, rather than attempts to cover up that misconduct by dismissing the felony indictment and still seeking to force the Defendants to trial on the misdemeanor charges. Moreover, redacting the grand jury transcripts in a manner that the Judge found was misleading and part of an effort to sweep the misconduct under the rug, may well indicate conduct of a dishonest nature.
Mr. Boutros was personally involved in the decisions to exclude grand jurors from the proceedings and in the decision to continue the case after learning of the grand jury misconduct. Mr. Hogan was responsible for the redaction decisions. Ms. Mecklenburg was personally responsible for the vouching and the substantive discussions with grand jurors outside the jury room. All of those actions appear to constitute ethical legal violations of Rule 8.4.
Rule 3.3 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct requires a lawyer to act with “Candor Toward the Tribunal”. The prosecutorial conduct described above, particularly with regard to continuing the case after some of the misconduct had come to light and misleadingly redacting the grand jury transcripts reflects a failure to be candid with the Court.
Rule 3.8 of the Illinois Professional Rules of Professional Conduct imposes special responsibilities on prosecutors. Prosecutors are prohibited from prosecuting charges the attorney know lack probable cause and “making extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused.” Several of the attorneys at the Department of Justice disparaged the defendants publicly. Moreover, the grand juries initially refused to approve the charges in question until the attorneys engaged in misconduct necessary to finally obtain an indictment. All of that conduct raises serious questions under Rule 3.8.
However, it is equally troubling that attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago may still be taking steps to cover up the involvement of attorneys in the DC headquarters of the Department of Justice in the misconduct in question. The agreement to pay the Defendants’ attorneys’ fees raises questions as to the government’s motivations; it appears that decision may be indicative of a desire to shield from disclosure communications with their DC superiors concerning the real reasons for prosecuting this case and making decisions along the way as to the handling of the case.
We are attaching copies of the exhibits referred to and related materials referred to in this letter so that the Commission can evaluate the underlying conduct directly.
We look forward to hearing from you.
The Chicago Council of Lawyers
