In 1895, Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary that the penniless population of Palestine must be “spirited across the border,” discreetly and circumspectly. In 1948, that vision became policy. With the Nakba, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced, their land absorbed by the newly declared state of Israel. In 1967 came the Naksa. In 1978, [...]
We continue our coverage of the fallout from the dropped federal case against the “Broadview 6,” six people who attended a protest outside Chicago’s Broadview ICE jail in September. They were later indicted for conspiracy to impede a federal agent, despite many not having met prior to appearing together in court. “I didn’t find out that I had been indicted until a month after this happened,” says Kat Abughazaleh, who was not arrested at the protest, but weeks later, as she was running for Congress. Michael Rabbitt, a Democratic ward committeeperson in Chicago, says that when he received a text informing him about a warrant for his arrest, “I actually thought it was a scam. I honestly didn’t think it was real.”
Calls are growing for the interim U.S. attorney in Chicago, Andrew Boutros, to resign over his handling of the “Broadview 6” case — six individuals charged with federal crimes for protesting outside Chicago’s Broadview ICE jail in September. The remaining charges against four of the Broadview 6 were recently dismissed after the case collapsed in court due to widespread prosecutorial misconduct. “This DOJ has completely corrupted the grand jury process,” says attorney Chris Parente, who represented one of the Broadview 6. “When they decide that they want to get a political indictment through, they will do whatever it takes, even acting in an unethical way.”
Parente, himself a former federal prosecutor, says federal prosecutors heavily misrepresented the case and forced an indictment despite the grand jury initially voting against it. What’s “even worse,” he adds, is the U.S. attorney’s subsequent cover-up of the prosecutors’ conduct, refusing to release the grand jury transcripts for months and later redacting and withholding full pages from the judge who ordered their release. “As a former federal prosecutor, your job is not to win any case. It’s to do the right thing. And I’ve never seen a case like this, where from the jump they did the wrong thing at every single turn.”