After a surprisingly emotional debate, the City Council approved a resolution Wednesday demanding the resignation of embattled U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros.
Only a handful of alderpersons opposed the resolution, which adds the City Council to the chorus of those demanding Boutros’ resignation and urges the Justice Department to “ensure a full review of obligations and matters connected to Operation Midway Blitz, the Broadview prosecutions and related proceedings.”
Northwest Side Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th) accused his colleagues of political hypocrisy and advised the City Council to “stay in our lane.”
Before meddling in a political quagmire they have no control over, Gardiner said City Council members should be more concerned with, as he put it, “cleaning up our own backyard.”
Gardiner was referring to former Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg and the city’s Board of Ethics that he claimed “spent nearly $220,000 in order to get $20,000 out of me” after an ethics investigation that amounted to a “political witch hunt.”
Boutros is facing a credibility crisis that began with the May 21 collapse of the “Broadview Six” case because of apparent prosecutor misconduct.
Damage has continued to spread, even in cases unrelated to the six Operation Midway Blitz protesters.
Gardiner said he’s not belittling the “seriousness” of those allegations, adding, “It’s terrible. If there’s any misconduct that was done, they should have to pay for that 100%”
Far Northwest Side Ald. Nick Sposato (38th), one of the Council’s most conservative members, said he had planned to oppose the resolution quietly, but couldn’t help but speak out. Sposato said both Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth appropriately “asked for” Boutros’ resignation.
But he added, “ We’ve got to act like we’re the big heroes. We’re not gonna deal with ICE. But we don’t say a damn f-ing thing about what happened with Sheridan Gorman. Not a thing. Listening to her mother on TV — it was painful.”
Gorman is the 18-year-old Loyola University student who was shot and killed while walking along the lakefront with her friends in April, allegedly by Jose Medina, a Venezuelan immigrant.
He added, “We don’t care about Jose Medina,” Sposato added. “We care about Boutros… We know what he did was wrong. I’m not saying what he did was right. But here we are — we have to have drama about this… I’m not gonna fall for this publicity stunt.”
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the Council’s Hispanic Caucus, tried to steer the conversation back to the Boutros controversy.
“At every stage of his prosecution of the Broadview Six, he has demonstrated — not impartiality and a dedication to justice, but deception, unprecedented misconduct and a willingness to throw away the values of his office and his country in order to secure a political win for this administration,” Vasquez said.
Noting that fallout from the scandal has already forced the U.S. attorney’s office to drop fraud charges against former officials of Loretto Hospital, Vasquez said he is proud to “join my colleagues today in demanding that he step down from his role, which he has already abandoned in principle.”
“In a truly just version of reality, Andrew Boutros wouldn’t just resign. He would be held accountable to the fullest extend of the law,” Vasquez said. “But in the absence of principled leaders who will do the right thing, we need to do whatever we can to call out the injustice we see, and put pressure on our elected officials to act on it. This behavior isn’t just unethical. It is antithetical to a just society, and we cannot let it stand.”