Feds Forced to Drop Case Against “Broadview Six” Anti-ICE Protesters |
Feds Forced to Drop Case Against “Broadview Six” Anti-ICE Protesters
Federal prosecutors have dismissed all charges against the protesters after apparent misconduct.
The charges against the remaining “Broadview Six” protesters were dropped Thursday, in a win for anyone who has protested ICE activity under the Trump administration.
The six protesters were hit with felony conspiracy charges carrying a maximum sentence of six years in prison after they surrounded an ICE agent’s car in the Chicago suburb of Broadview in September, in an attempt to slow it down. It was alleged the protesters “pushed and scratched and otherwise damaged,” the vehicle, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. But like many charges brought by the feds against anti-ICE protesters, they failed to hold up in court.
The government first dropped charges against two of the protesters, Catherine Sharp and Joselyn Walsh. Then it threw out the conspiracy charges against the other four—Brian Straw, Michael Rabbitt, Andre Martin, and former congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh—and instead tried to convict them of one misdemeanor count each for impeding a federal agent.
In the end, the administration couldn’t even do that. Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, dropped the charges with prejudice in front of U.S. District Judge April Perry, meaning the case cannot be refiled in the future.
Boutros remained petty to the end. He called the protesters’ actions “unacceptable in a civilized society,” adding: “It is for the grace of God that that agent moved at two miles per hour.”
Perry was unimpressed. “You are significantly undercutting your mea culpa here by standing behind the charges and continuing to vilify these particular defendants,” she told Boutros.
Boutros had already annoyed the judge once before, when his assistants took transcripts of themselves explaining the conspiracy laws to the grand jury pool, then apparently redacted some of the transcripts when Perry asked for them. She discussed this with them in a private hearing. Boutros later insisted to Perry that “no one acted with the intent to mislead your honor.”
ICE came to Chicago in Operation Midway Blitz, a deportation campaign beginning in September 2025, a few months before Operation Metro Surge took over Minneapolis. The campaign resulted in protests, arrests, and the fatal shooting of one resident, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez.
Republican Rep. Wants to Use Trump Slush Fund to Steal From Americans
Representative Andrew Clyde also wants a piece of the pie.
Even members of Congress are taking the opportunity to cash in on Donald Trump’s slush fund.
The DOJ created a $1.8 billion honey pot earlier this week, offering “anti-weaponization” payouts to virtually any right-winger who felt targeted by the previous presidential administration—at cost to U.S. taxpayers.
The money is apparently worth more to lawmakers than the negative impacts it will have on their constituents. Republican Representative Andrew Clyde came out in favor of the executive branch’s creation, suggesting to Politico Thursday that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of taking money from the account himself.
The Georgia Republican argued that he had been previously targeted by the IRS and had to forfeit assets to the tune of $1 million. Clyde won most of the money back after he took the IRS to court, but he told Politico that he still has considerable legal fees from the endeavor.
There are others far beyond Capitol Hill who are interested in milking the fund, such as the financially ruined CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, who lost most of his net worth for spreading unfounded conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election.
Hundreds of pardoned January 6ers are also in the queue, including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, a sex offender who bear-sprayed cops, and a convicted child molester who told his victims he would give them money from a Trump payout in exchange for their silence.
Trump leveraged the promise of payouts to his success on the campaign trail. In January—months before the slush fund became a reality—Democrats attempted to stave off such payments, introducing the “No Rewards for January 6 Rioters Act.” But the bill never went anywhere, and has made no progress since.
The slush fund was the result of an unprecedented deal that Trump made with himself. Rather than settle his $10 billion lawsuit against his own administration, Trump opted to drop the case entirely earlier this week and, in turn, extracted a pledge from the DOJ to financially assist his allies.
The arrangement came with a curious addendum from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, immunizing Trump from further federal prosecution. The government of the United States, Blanche wrote Tuesday, is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “any and all claims” against Trump, his family, or his business.
Legal experts are questioning whether the scheme is unconstitutional. If the arrangement is allowed to stand, Trump will have effectively thwarted the powers of both the legislative and judicial branches, and soiled the constitutionally defined separation of power.
Trump Tells Republicans to Defend His Slush Fund by Lying
The Department of Justice has given Republicans a list of talking points not grounded in reality.
Ahead of a meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the White House sent a document to GOP senators on Thursday explaining why President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund is actually a great idea.
The document says the fund is about “seeking accountability” for millions of Americans “who were victims of lawfare and weaponization.” It falsely claims the president cannot profit from it, lets senators know they can get a piece of the action themselves (wink, wink), and even attempts to paint the fund as a bipartisan win. “Democrats can submit claims, too,” the document states happily.
Unsurprisingly for the most corrupt presidential administration in history, the document greatly contradicts the legal agreement that actually established the fund. Journalist Adam Klasfeld found nine different instances where the document differs from the agreement.
For example, the document claims the fund can be audited by a third party, while omitting the fact that Blanche gets to choose the auditor and can veto the audit at will. The document also claims there is no “partisan restriction” to the fund, despite the legal settlement defining the “weaponization” in question as being committed exclusively by Democrats.
Even........