U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche looks at his watch as he holds a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 15, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Attorney General Todd Blanche's Justice Department was blasted by a veteran prosecutor who retired "under protest," suggesting leadership had thrown her under the bus as a judge was considering a criminal probe of President Donald Trump's 2025 crackdown against immigrants on protesters in Chicago.
Sheri Mecklenburg, the former lead prosecutor in the "Broadview Six" protest case, made the accusations Thursday in a letter to U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Friday.
Her retirement comes days before U.S. District Judge April Perry hears arguments on whether to appoint a special counsel, an independent prosecutor, to investigate Boutros, Mecklenburg and others, according to the Sun-Times. Under pressure from Trump and Blanche, Mecklenburg admitted she crossed the line while pursuing charges she says should never have been brought.
Mecklenburg wrote that she planned to ask Perry to let her defend herself in court. A senior official in Boutros' office first told her lawyer he saw no problem with her citing a Justice Department manual in the filing, she said.
"A short time later, however, that same official informed my counsel that he had consulted with the Front Office [Boutros' leadership team] who advised that, as a current DOJ employee, I am prohibited from filing anything to defend myself and will be disciplined and/or terminated if I do so," she wrote.
"I therefore am retiring under protest, effective immediately, because retirement is the only way to preserve my continued healthcare benefits, earned over decades of service. This is not a voluntary departure," Mecklenburg continued.
Boutros' office had told Perry in a court brief that Mecklenburg did nothing to deserve sanctions or court-ordered penalties. Mecklenburg wrote that the admission was "tardy" and "incomplete."
"Preventing me from defending myself is particularly reprehensible given the Office's failure to adequately defend me," she wrote. "The Office did not fully present the facts supporting my conduct. It now seeks to prevent me from presenting those facts myself."
Mecklenburg withdrew from the case in February, according to her Thursday court filing. She wrote that she learned about a May 21 hearing in Perry's courtroom from the media.
At that hearing, Perry rebuked prosecutors over apparent misconduct before the grand jury, and Boutros dropped the remaining charges and took responsibility, Capitol News Illinois reported.
"Since I was not present, I was a convenient target to be scapegoated and publicly vilified," Mecklenburg wrote. "You recklessly agreed in court that I had committed misconduct without even asking for my account, fully reviewing the record or briefing the law."
"That evening, you sent an office-wide email laying responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges," she told Boutros.
"The claim that [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Mecklenburg proposed a misdemeanor and was told instead to file a felony charge is false," the Justice Department said in a statement to the Sun-Times. "Mecklenburg's recommendation in writing to the supervisory chain of the U.S. Attorney's Office included the [conspiracy] felony as the strongest charge."
Blanche, then deputy attorney general, announced the charges on Oct. 29, 2025, in a Justice Department news release. The six protesters were accused of impeding a federal agent outside an immigration facility in suburban Broadview.
"No one is above the law and no one has the right to obstruct it," Blanche said in the release.
The charges came during Operation Midway Blitz, a crackdown Trump previewed with a Truth Social post styled after the film "Apocalypse Now" and warning that Chicago was "about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR," CBS Chicago reported.
Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, has led the Justice Department since April and was confirmed as attorney general in August, NPR reported.
Mecklenburg's lawyers conceded in her filing that she should not have vouched for the case, meaning she put her personal credibility behind it, or spoken with two grand jurors outside the grand jury room. They denied that she improperly excused jurors.
"But legitimate scrutiny is not the same as scapegoating, and accountability does not require silence in the face of demonstrably false accusations," she wrote in the letter.
"I also would have expected, at some point during the past four months, that the leaders who directed or approved the prosecution would accept responsibility for their own roles and decisions rather than assigning the consequences to me alone," Mecklenburg wrote.