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Among the First Things Attorney Matthew Skiba Did Was Target Democrats
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NYT has a story about the subpoena Chicago US Attorney Andrew Boutros’ office obtained to target a Democratic political consulting firm with a tie to Judge Juan Merchan, the judge who presided over Trump’s hush payment fraud case, Fifteen paragraphs into it, Glenn Thrush revealed who carried out that politicized investigation last August: William Hogan and Matthew Skiba, two of the prosecutors in the Broadview Six case.The career prosecutors who secured the subpoena, Matthew Skiba and William Hogan, both played roles in an ill-fated case against six protesters accused of assaulting federal agents during the White House-directed immigration crackdown in 2025 known as Midway Blitz.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago had to withdraw the charges in that case after defense lawyers raised concerns about the conduct of Mr. Boutros’s prosecutors before a grand jury. That prompted Mr. Boutros, who worked as a prosecutor in the office he now runs, to announce a review of internal procedures.
Thrush bolloxed the details of the Broadview Six case a bit.
Defense attorneys raised concerns about what happened in the grand jury, sure. More specifically, they pointed out how problematic it was to charge six people with a conspiracy because a large ICE SUV drove into them as they peacefully protested. Boutros’ office didn’t have to drop the charges. Prosecutors chose to do so, first, in an attempt to keep the events of the grand jury secret. Then Boutros dropped the case entirely when Judge April Perry revealed that prosecutors had engaged in taboo practices to obtain the indictment.
And it’s not entirely clear why Boutros chose to conduct an investigation — whether it was legitimate concern or just an attempt to protect the other prosecutors on the case.
Launching that showy review served to scapegoat Sheri Mecklenburg, the prosecutor who violated the taboos, and protect the other prosecutors.
That is, to protect Hogan and Skiba.
By pretending all the misconduct happened in that grand jury last October, Boutros is claiming that it doesn’t matter that Hogan redacted the transcript, hiding most of the misconduct, before handing grand jury transcripts to Judge Perry. Hogan claims and Boutros has parroted that claim that the redactions were an attempt to provide just what Perry ordered, the passages instructing on the law.
Except Hogan didn’t do that. He covered up two passages instructing on the law, too, including one that directly addressed a concern previously raised by the defense. So by focusing on the grand jury, Boutros is attempting to shut down any investigation into whether, and what, Hogan was attempting to cover-up when he redacted those transcripts, because it could be more than just the taboo tactics.
For his part, Skiba largely dodged accountability for the taboo behavior in the grand jury by — in the hearing where the case fell apart — pointing to his own inexperience. He just showed up, after all, on July 14 (after serving as a Clerk and a state prosecutor).
MR. SKIBA: So in full candor, Your Honor, I started with this office on July 14th. I had been with the office for less than two months. This was the second time I was before a grand jury. The first time was a simple PSN case
Of course, that means that one of the first things Skiba did when he believed he was protected by grand jury secrecy was to claim that being run into by a large ICE SUV was just like ambushing a Joe Biden campaign bus on the freeway, which — when exposed — was obviously an inapt precedent but also an expression of Skiba’s own raging MAGAt grievance.
Until this story, it seemed this was the first thing Skiba did when he moved from his state prosecutor job to the US Attorney’s office, to hop on the Trump Train before a grand jury.
Now we know that even before that, Andrew Boutros had entrusted Skiba, a brand new AUSA, to conduct an incredibly sensitive investigation, effectively retaliating against a judge’s family because he dared treat Trump as some subject to rule of law, like the rest of us.
And that raises more questions about why Boutros is working so hard to protect Skiba, along with Hogan.
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