Ex-Chicago FBI chief says he was ousted over a failed protesters case,
sues Justice Department
[November 03, 2026]
By CYBELE MAYES-OSTERMAN
CHICAGO (AP) — The former head of the FBI's Chicago field office says he
lost his job after being wrongly blamed for prosecutions that fell apart
against six people who protested the federal immigration crackdown in
the city, according to a lawsuit he filed Monday.
Douglas DePodesta, a 24-year veteran of the FBI, says in the suit
against top Justice Department officials that federal prosecutors pushed
“politically motivated prosecutions” against Chicago’s demonstrators
before gathering evidence. He says his superiors told him that FBI
Director Kash Patel wanted him fired, and he stepped down against his
will this summer.
"I saw the writing on the wall,” DePodesta told The Associated Press on
Monday.
He accused the top federal prosecutor in Illinois, Andrew Boutros, of
starting a “campaign within the Department of Justice to blame” him
after the so-called “Broadview Six” case dramatically fell apart earlier
this year.
Boutros’ office declined to comment. The FBI and the Justice Department,
which are both named in the suit, did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Hours after DePodesta filed the suit, U.S. District Judge April Perry
ordered Boutros and three of his assistant attorneys to testify under
oath on Nov. 16 in the failed case against the protesters.
“There is more than an adequate factual basis for the Court to pursue an
inquiry as to whether willful false statements were made to the court,”
Perry wrote in the order.
Federal prosecutors brought charges against around 30 protesters during
the Chicago immigration enforcement operation, called Operation Midway
Blitz. Many of those charges have been dropped or dismissed.
According to DePodesta’s lawsuit, Boutros faced pressure from the
Justice Department throughout the crackdown to charge protesters with
felonies.
“Boutros sent DePodesta emails demanding that DePodesta open FBI
investigations into individuals with political views or affiliations in
opposition to the Trump administration,” DePodesta’s attorneys wrote.
Boutros often pressured attorneys under him in the U.S. Attorney’s
Office for the Northern District of Illinois to press charges “before
investigating the objective evidence,” and he wanted felony charges when
assisting attorneys “favored misdemeanors or no charges at all,” the
suit alleges.
The office last October charged six people with conspiring to obstruct a
federal officer, a felony, for their actions during a protest at a U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of
Broadview.
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Douglas DePodesta, special agent in charge of the Chicago Field
Office, speaks with reporters at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in
Chicago, Feb. 12, 2025. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP,
File)/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
Transcripts turned over to the court, which a judge ordered Boutros'
office to remove redactions from, later revealed that a grand jury
twice refused to indict the six, despite prosecutors' urgings and a
highly unusual speech Boutros gave to jurors. Boutros dropped all
charges against the six in May as the court moved to investigate
possible prosecutorial misconduct.
Boutros “repeatedly complained to his superiors in Washington” that
the failure was DePodesta's fault “to deflect attention from his own
malfeasance,” DePodesta's attorneys wrote in the suit. DePodesta
denied Boutros’ accusations to his superiors at the FBI, and they
conceded that he was only being forced out because of the “political
pressure Boutros created,” according to the suit.
The suit alleges Boutros told Justice Department leadership that
DePodesta and his sister-in-law Nancy DePodesta, who is an attorney
representing one of the six former defendants, “conspired to
destroy” the case.
Nancy DePodesta, who represents Michael Rabbitt, one of the former
defendants, confirmed to the AP that she is Douglas DePodesta's
sister-in-law.
“There is no one at the FBI who took their oath of office and their
ethical and moral responsibilities more seriously than Doug,” Nancy
DePodesta said in a statement to the AP. “It is both heartbreaking
and shameful that he was forced out of his position based on what
appear to be utterly false rumors spread by” Boutros, she added.
In late September, one of the prosecutors on the “Broadview Six”
case abruptly resigned, writing in a scathing resignation letter
that Boutros had “scapegoated and publicly vilified” her. She filed
a motion asking the court to treat her as an independent party going
forward.
The former defendants have asked Judge Perry to appoint a special
counsel to look into possible misconduct by prosecutors. At an Oct.
1 hearing, Perry ordered further “fact-finding” about communications
between Boutros’ office and Justice Department leadership.
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