Federal prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg resigned from the Department of Justice this week, penning a scathing letter in which she said U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros “personally directed” the Broadview Six prosecution that she says ended her career.
Mecklenburg was the lead prosecutor for the grand jury proceedings that brought felony charges against a group of six protesters arrested outside the Broadview ICE facility outside Chicago as Operation Midway Blitz ramped up in 2025.
The protesters faced felony charges for conspiracy and misdemeanor charges for obstruction, but the case fell apart in two steps. First, the felony charges were dismissed; then, as Boutros’ office prepared for a rare federal misdemeanor trial, allegations of “gross misconduct” involving the grand jury proceedings emerged. Days before the trial was to start, the remaining misdemeanors were dismissed with prejudice.
Boutros himself appeared in court to announce the dismissal, following a closed-door hearing before U.S. District Judge April Perry over redacted grand jury transcripts. He said he learned only in late April of some of the alleged misconduct, including the lead prosecutor vouching for the strength of the case and improper communications with grand jurors outside the proceedings. He said he had known since the fall that grand jurors who disagreed with the government’s case had been dismissed and had taken steps to correct it.
Boutros did not dispute the allegations, saying the conduct was upsetting and the reason the case was being dismissed.
In her resignation letter, which was obtained by CBS News, Mecklenburg accused Boutros of using her as “a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified.”
Mecklenburg writes that Boutros and his office kept her and her attorneys in the dark about all proceedings around the accusations of misconduct and have since prevented her from defending herself against allegations by defense attorneys that she “outright lied” to the grand jury. She also disputes that she was silent as the court addressed the grand jury transcript redactions, saying she did not know about the redactions or the hearings and accusing Boutros of intentionally not telling her about them.
She also accuses Boutros of personally overseeing the felony prosecution of the protesters.
“You recklessly agreed in court that I had committed misconduct without even asking for my account, fully reviewing the record or briefing the law,” she writes. “That evening, you 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.”
She writes Boutros’ “inexplicable actions” have damaged her reputation, her decades-long career and her possibilities for future employment. She also says he threatened to fire her if she “attempted to rebut the false allegations and bring additional matters to the Court’s attention,” though she does not specify what those additional matters are.
She writes that she’s retiring under protest because it’s the only way to protect her continued healthcare benefits “earned through decades of government service,” which she would lose if she were fired.
Mecklenburg left the Broadview case in February 2026, when she took an assignment representing the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Shortly after the case fell apart, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, announced she had been terminated from that job.
Boutros also announced his office would be undertaking “sweeping” grand jury reforms, which he later said would set “very bright lines” about when prosecutors must turn over grand jury material. He also said his office would review more than 1,000 other grand jury cases handled by Mecklenburg and other prosecutors in his office.
“I still expect a full and fair opportunity to address the allegations against me and restore my reputation,” she writes. “I also would have expected, at some point during the past four months, that the leaders who directed or approved the prosecution would accept responsibility for their own roles and decisions rather than assigning the consequence to me alone.”
CBS News Chicago reached out to Mecklenburg’s attorney about the letter, who said he could not share it directly with us at this time “as the matter is in litigation.” He also said neither he nor Mecklenburg had a comment at this time.
The only response thusfar from the Justice Department has been to refute that Boutros instructed Mecklenburg to prusue felony charges.
“The claim that Mecklenburg proposed a misdemeanor and was told instead to file a felony charge is false,” a DOJ spokesperon wrote in a statement. “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.”
Read the full letter:
