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Main DOJ’s Bigfooting in Broadview 6
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I made a mistake in this post, in which I described how DOJ breached its own privilege when it chose to respond to Sheri Mecklenburg pawning the decision to charge the Broadview 6 with a felony conspiracy charge off on US Attorney Boutros.I assumed that Chicago’s US Attorney’s office responded by debunking Mecklenburg — that Boutros was the one to breach those privilege claims. But as exonerees note in their notice of Mecklenburg’s retirement letter, the Chicago Tribune describes Chicago as staying mum.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office could not immediately be reached.
But Main DOJ blabbing about what Mecklenburg put into writing.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Justice said that claim was “false.”
“Mecklenburg’s recommendation in writing to the supervisory chain of the U.S. Attorney’s Office included the section 372 felony as the strongest charge,” a DOJ spokesman said in an email.
That makes things still worse for DOJ, as I’ll explain.
All of this may come to a head — or at least further unravel — today. At 1PM Chicago time, Judge April Perry will hold a hearing in the Broadview 6 case to consider both exonerees’ request for discovery, sanctions, and a special prosecutor, and Sheri Mecklenburg’s motion to intervene in the just latter two issues. I had a grand post planned to refocus on how Mecklenburg’s mic drop makes US Attorney Andrew Boutros’ earlier choices riskier for him, but I never got it done (though have pulled links over, below). A less weedy version follows as way of laying out what may happen today.
First, note that it’s not clear everyone will be focused on the same arguments today. Before she added Mecklenburg’s motion to the hearing, Judge Perry said the hearing would consider Dockets 226 (motion for sanctions), 227 (motion for special prosecutor), and three motions for Hyde Amendment payments (210, 206, 201); she wrote them in that order. That leaves off Docket 225, which addressed whether exonerees could still get discovery after DOJ agreed to pay their attorney fees but before they did so. But DOJ has largely blown off all those Hyde Amendment filings, addressing them in strictly procedural fashion separately. In spite of purporting to address Docket 225, the response to 225, 226, and 227 that Boutros put his name on almost entirely ignores the Hyde Amendment. So DOJ may not be prepared to address that today.
Instead of addressing the Hyde Amendment (for which the standard is whether a prosecution is “vexatious, frivolous, or bad faith”) Boutros dedicated a separate 5-page section of his response to addressing vindictive and selective prosecution. He did that even though he said right from the start of that section that any vindictive and selective claims were mooted when he dismissed the case. He did that even though he manufactured a focus, from exonerees, on the topic. They barely addressed it … except by chronicling that’s where all these discovery requests come from and citing Judge Perry raising it on May 21. Ultimately, Boutros finally gets around to admitting Perry’s the one who raised this, too.
[T]his Court brought up those allegations during the May 21, 2026, morning hearing—albeit before the charges were dismissed with prejudice—the Government addresses them here to allay any such potential concerns.
Which is to say, Boutros spends more than 10% of his brief addressing a topic that’s not technically among the three motions he planned to address or the three other motions he may not have, but which Judge Perry has placed before him. I get that decision, but not how he tried to address Perry’s concerns.
In that 5-page section, Boutros did not adopt DOJ’s favorite means of dismissing claims that Trump or someone else has ordered up prosecutions, which is to emphasize that so long as the prosecutor who made the prosecutorial decision had no animus, it doesn’t matter what Trump or other people at Main DOJ think (which I wrote about here). Instead, he gave a bullshit account of how he (not Sheri Mecklenburg) made the decision. To explain the (misdemeanor) assault charges, he laid out several pieces of evidence that he takes threats to cops seriously, without ever mentioning all the ICE invasion assault cases he had given up on without presenting them three times to a grand jury, nor mentioning any evidence that the exonerees had assaulted the ICE goon who drove into them. To explain the conspiracy charge, he claimed without evidence that all the exonerees had touched the car that most touched (if they did) because it drove into them. Nowhere does Boutros describe why he decided to criminalize getting hit by a car. Boutros also invoked the rationalization for the charges he offered at that May 21 hearing, a rationalization that pissed off Judge Perry when he made it the first time.
Particularly given that he claims this is all moot, Boutros’ approach to this question contrasts in interesting fashion with his office’s past attempts to rebut claims of vindictive or selective prosecution. The first time DOJ responded to that argument (in a discovery response written by Mecklenburg shortly before she left the case), DOJ only addressed selective prosecution, while arguing that defendants weren’t entitled to communications with anyone outside of prosecutors. The second time DOJ responded to that argument (in a response motion by William Hogan), DOJ again focused exclusively on selective prosecution, while replacing the argument about standards of discovery with bluster and invective.That second response then led to an exchange exonerees did harp on throughout all these filings: Hogan’s representation to Judge Perry that there were no communications of any nature from anyone outside Chicago about investigatory or charging decisions.
The decisions about who and what to charge were made by the USAO prosecutors and their supervisors based solely on positive identifications of the defendants and evaluations of their individual criminal conduct. Considerations such as defendants’ political affiliations, activities, views, or positions were not considered in any way as part of the investigation or charging decisions. Accordingly, there are no communications of any nature from, to, or with anyone outside the USAO (other than the local FBI investigators assigned to the case) regarding any investigatory or charging decisions. To be crystal clear, this specifically includes anyone in the White House and all components and offices of Main Justice. 2
2 The first time the USAO communicated with Main Justice about the identity of the defendants in this case only came after a draft indictment was approved internally and was for the limited purpose of complying with the letter and spirit of Justice Manual Section 9- 85.500.
And then Judge Perry’s reliance and misstatement of that categorical claim in ruling against discover on such issues in April.
The defendants have expressly predicated their theory of vindictive and selective prosecution on external forces having some type of impact on the Chicago-based prosecutors. They stated in writing repeatedly that they are not alleging any animus by the line AUSAs or the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office. To the end, the prosecutors agreed to provide evidence of external forces communicating with the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office about this case, and they have now said there is no such evidence. There are no White House communications, there are no main justice communications, and I quote, There are no communications of any nature from, to, or with anyone outside of the U.S. Attorney’s Office other than local FBI investigators assigned to the case regarding any investigatory or charging decisions.
Hogan limited his comment to investigative and charging decisions. Perry did not. Add that to the list of misimpressions Hogan left undisturbed.
Boutros’ own filing debunks that claim anyway, conceding there was a meeting on September 27 at which a video that is exceedingly likely to be the one that Kat Abughazaleh posted, to which far right extremists and far right Senators, including Aakash Singh buddy Mike Davis, responded by demanding she be prosecuted.
[T]here was a virtual meeting on September 27, 2025, among Main Justice lawyers, the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office, lawyers from at least one other U.S. Attorney’s Office on the West Coast, and many federal law enforcement agencies where the September 26 “Broadview” incident was mentioned (and a public video played) as part of a broader discussion of incidents and conduct against ICE during that time.
While all this briefing was going on, Boutros’ First AUSA, Jason Yonan, issued a correction that got far less notice that Mecklenburg’s mic drop. He described that the seemingly inconsistent answer Diane MacArthur offered exonerees about this precise question — the nature of conversations between Chicago and Main DOJ — was his fault.
On August 11, 2026, former Defendants’ counsel emailed again asking whether there were other communications between the Front Office and Department of Justice officials concerning this case that did not involve “direction.” R 255-1 at 3. The AUSA consulted with the First Assistant United States Attorney, who misunderstood this request as relating to communications that predated the charging decision made by the U.S. Attorney’s Office locally. Accordingly, after consulting with the United States Attorney, the First Assistant United States Attorney directed the AUSA to respond to former Defendants’ counsel by referencing a September 27, 2025, virtual meeting in which a video of the incident in question was played and the incident discussed but the identities of the individuals in the incident were unknown to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
That response did not accurately answer former Defendants’ request because, as the government has previously stated, there were communications with Main Justice after the charging decision had been made by the U.S. Attorney’s Office locally. See R. 110 at 3, 4 n.2; R. 247 at 3, 40-41 n.15. There are no communications between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the White House regarding this matter.
This correction is consistent with Footnote 15, the one that revealed Hogan misled Judge Perry. Someone at DOJ showed the video of the protest — again, almost certainly Abughazaleh’s video — amid a discussion of charging anyone who touched an ICE goon; folks in Chicago investigated it just as Mike Davis ordered them to solely by linking communications of Abughazaleh or, remarkably, knowing to Google “guitar girl Broadview ICE,” which would bring you to this Facebook post, describing how a rubber bullet went through Joselyn Walsh’s guitar and hit her in her leg, which is how she got charged. And based off that, if we are to believe DOJ’s account, they came to a decision to charge Abughazaleh and five others before even reviewing Broadview cops’ video of the event, which showed several of them walking away from the SUV that had just driven into them.
Which brings us to the conflict between Mecklenburg and DOJ. She says Boutros “sent an office-wide email laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges.” DOJ breached its own privilege to say, “Mecklenburg’s recommendation in writing to the supervisory chain of the U.S. Attorney’s Office included the section 372 felony as the strongest charge.”
These are not remotely incompatible claims. DOJ doesn’t say what Mecklenburg meant by “strong.” Did she mean, the most draconian? Did she mean a 18 USC 372 felony conspiracy charge was stronger than a 18 USC 371 felony conspiracy charge, which is what Mike Davis ordered Boutros to charge. Did she mean 18 USC 372 was more likely to survive as a felony charge than assault, 18 USC 111, which Davis also ordered Boutros to charge?
More importantly, as we discuss the one felony charge Boutros kept trying to charge while he let a bunch of other felony charges go, no one has said when these conversations took place. DOJ’s pat answer has always been that they didn’t discuss any of this (aside from the video the day after the protest) with Main DOJ until after they first drafted the indictment in advance of the first October 9 grand jury presentation. But that pat answer is completely consistent with discussing it — and sharing the grand jury transcript that Boutros pinky swears he didn’t read — after the grand jury no-billed the first time and then reassessing whether to keep trying for a felony.
Perhaps that’s when Mecklenburg objected: when Boutros ordered her to go back and keep trying to charge that felony. That would be pretty interesting, because what happened that day — with at least two and probably more grand jurors getting kicked out — is precisely what Aakash Singh had ordered other people to do when a grand jury found their charges to be a “crock of shit.” Throw those people out until you have a grand jury that will indict.
But at some point — either in real time, when Mecklenburg was objecting, or as DOJ has tried to scapegoat her to protect the even more corrupt people — Main DOJ got her charging recommendation which is (and this is undoubtedly why exonerees distinguish in their notice between the mum spox in Chicago and the blabby one in DC) yet more proof of Main DOJ’s direct involvement in this case. When did they get her communications, and was it part of bigfooting a charging decision or scapegoating her?
Until a week ago, when Mecklenburg dropped her mic, DOJ might have gotten away with a discussion of standards: at what point can Judge Perry use her inherent authority to start sanctioning people, which she lists first among the issues before her? But now, particularly with Main DOJ’s decision to blab away, today’s hearing is likely to focus at least partly on these contested facts. Sheri Mecklenburg will be right there in the room, where Boutros tried to exclude her back in May.
That doesn’t change the standards, which are still quite high. But it does change what today’s hearing may look like.
Docket 201 (June 2): Hyde Amendment Motion for 4 exonerees. Includes timeline of misconduct and lays out standards for “vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith”
- Exhibit A: 251203 Discovery Letter
- Exhibit B: 251218 DOJ Discovery Response
- Exhibit C: 260121 DOJ Discovery Response (initial Selective/Vindictive)
Docket 206 (June 4): Hyde Amendment Motion to conduct discovery. Includes discovery requests.
June 5: DOJ tells defendants they will not contest Hyde Act Motion
Docket 210 (June 5): Cat Sharp request to join.
June 9: Hearing on grand jury transcripts.
Docket 225 (June 16): Exonerees reiterate request for discovery.
Docket 226 (June 16): Motion for sanctions. Recalls that Judge Perry declined for information about searches relating to outside influence, rebuts presumption of regularity, raises new information about Aakash Singh, requests Perry order a search.
- Exhibit A: Kilmar Abrego opinion. Outlines Aakash Singh’s close involvement and uses that to find vindictive prosecution.
Docket 227 (June 16): Motion for special counsel. Lays out Boutros’ personal involvement.
- Exhibit A: Kilmar Abrego opinion. Outlines Aakash Singh’s close involvement and uses that to find vindictive prosecution.
Docket 238 (July 7): DOJ response to Hyde Amendment (201, 206, 210, 211 225). Purports to moot further discovery. Filed by Maxwell Lisy.
Docket 239 (July 14): Reply on Hyde Amendment discovery. Notes no offer of payment has been made.
July 15: Exonerees ask again about communications.
July 27: Exonerees follow up again on communications.
Docket 247 (August 4): DOJ Response (225, 226, 227).
August 11: Exonerees and Diane MacArthur exchange on communications.
August 14: MacArthur stands by footnote (DOJ would correct this answer on September 25).
August 17: Exonerees ask again for clarity.
Docket 255 (September 15): Exonerees Reply (225, 226, 227).
- Exhibit A: Emails
- Exhibit B: Excerpt October 16, 2025 grand jury
- Exhibit C: Excerpt October 23, 2025 grand jury
September 23: Judge Perry sets hearing for October 1, 1PM
Docket 261 (September 24): Mecklenburg moves to intervene
Docket 263 (September 24): Exonerees response to Mecklenburg motion to intervene. Corrects one of two claims Mecklenburg says was false, that she did nothing about grand jury redactions.
The post Main DOJ’s Bigfooting in Broadview 6 appeared first on emptywheel.