Dear listeners,
The ‘Broadview Six’ case was one of the Trump administration’s prominent prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters, including politically prominent figures like Kat Abughazaleh. Federal prosecutors in Chicago brought felony charges to fanfare, then curiously dropped them, keeping only misdemeanor counts. Now we know why: They engaged in egregious misconduct to obtain the felony indictments, which they then sought to conceal from Judge April Perry, who is not amused.
Now, the charges are all dismissed with prejudice, Perry is considering sanctions, and US Attorney Andrew Boutros has issued a weird memo promising reform — his tone is less combative than usual for the Trump DOJ, and instead by turns conciliatory and self-congratulatory for having decided that misconduct is bad and must be stopped. Boutros, a former AUSA and white-collar criminal defense partner at Dechert, surely knew better than to handle this the way his office did. Alas. Oh, and Boutros is also in the news because his office is apparently running a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, examining whether she lied in a deposition hundreds of miles from Chicago.
We discuss that for all subscribers. For paying subscribers this week, there’s also:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s big and unusual win on vindictive prosecution, which is already inspiring the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A sordid case involving an Eleventh Circuit judge whose sofa cushion required forensic testing after clerks asserted she was noisily carrying on an affair in chambers. Gross!
A free speech win for West Point faculty.
An interesting new insider trading case involving Polymarket.
A probably-too-clever motion attacking the “anti-weaponization fund,” and
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
