Two Justice Department lawyers defending Chicago’s federal prosecutors against misconduct claims asked to withdraw from the case as a judge weighs possible criminal contempt findings related to fallout from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Diane MacArthur and Nathaniel Whalen each told the court Friday that they were “no longer assigned to this case,” in motions filed by MacArthur and Whalen. Neither gave a reason.
Friday was also U.S. District Judge April Perry’s deadline for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros’ office to turn over evidence to help her make “findings of fact regarding potential sanctions or criminal contempt,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported Oct. 9.
Perry’s inquiry grew out of the collapse of a protest prosecution in May.
The office charged six protesters, including then-congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, with conspiring to impede a federal agent outside an immigration facility in suburban Broadview in September 2025, during Trump’s Chicago immigration crackdown, the Sun-Times reported.
Charges were dropped May 21 after Perry uncovered apparent misconduct before the grand jury. She has since left open the possibility of naming a special prosecutor to investigate Boutros and others, the Sun-Times reported after an Oct. 1 hearing.
“My sole focus, at this point, is on lack of candor, concealment of material facts, or other misconduct that occurred before me,” Perry said at that hearing.
“It is my very sincere belief, Your Honor, that no prosecutor acted intentionally in misleading you,” Boutros told Perry in May, according to CNN.
MacArthur and Whalen have spoken for the office on whether officials in Washington had a hand in the case.
The evidence Perry requested includes every communication the office had with anyone outside it, other than local FBI agents, about investigative or charging decisions from the day of the protest to March 30, 2026, when prosecutors denied any such communications existed.
The trial prosecutors wrote in that March filing that there were “no communications of any nature” with anyone outside the office about those decisions, and “to be crystal clear,” that included the White House and Justice Department headquarters.
But in August, a brief signed by Whalen and Boutros disclosed a virtual meeting with Justice Department lawyers in Washington on Sept. 27, 2025, the day after the protest.
The office later called that answer “mistaken” in a Sept. 25 correction, saying it came from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Yonan, Boutros’ top deputy, and not from MacArthur. The correction said there were communications with Justice Department headquarters “after the charging decision had been made.”
“No way, no how,” the judge said Oct. 1 of what she had been told about such contacts. “And now, your argument has changed pretty significantly.”
MacArthur and Whalen are not the first government lawyers to move to withdraw from the case, and the first to do so later retired from the Justice Department in protest.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg, who led the grand jury presentations and says she “owns” any mistakes she made, withdrew in February when she left for a temporary assignment in Washington, according to her Sept. 24 court filing.
The filing said the office had advised her she “could be disciplined or terminated” if she filed anything on her own behalf.
In her retirement letter, she accused Boutros of pursuing a felony prosecution “that you personally directed over my objection.”
Perry will take up the withdrawal requests Nov. 5, court records show. The government’s brief on whether she can constitutionally appoint an independent prosecutor is due Monday under her Oct. 1 order.
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