A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s efforts to limit her inquiry into prosecutorial conduct in the Broadview Six case, keeping a hearing on track for Monday despite the department’s objections.

U.S. District Judge April Perry has sought answers for months about how prosecutors secured felony conspiracy charges against six protesters, including former congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, following a September 2025 demonstration outside the Broadview immigration detention facility in suburban Chicago.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in May after Perry reviewed grand jury transcripts. The records showed that an initial grand jury declined to indict. A prosecutor then continued pursuing the case, vouched for its merits, discussed its substance with grand jurors outside the room and excused jurors who disagreed with the government, according to the transcripts. A later panel returned an indictment.

“I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,” Perry said at the time.

The judge subsequently scheduled a hearing and asked U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros and three line prosecutors to testify. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward argued on the Justice Department’s behalf that communications involving the local prosecutors were privileged and that Perry had exceeded her authority by ordering the testimony.

Woodward also asked the judge to clarify the hearing’s purpose, including whether it could lead to a criminal contempt referral. He said the prosecutors faced a “Catch-22”: testifying could expose them to prosecution, while invoking the Fifth Amendment could antagonize the court. If the evidence could not be obtained without what DOJ considered an improper inquiry, Woodward argued, the matter should be left to the executive branch.

On Tuesday, Perry called the department’s privilege log “noncompliant,” saying it omitted authors, recipients and participants in email chains. She also faulted the government’s production of an October 14, 2025, email sent to Boutros with a grand jury transcript attached. The email and attachment were provided as a single PDF without metadata, she said, shedding no light on whether or when Boutros read the transcript.

On Wednesday, Perry said the department’s claimed confusion about the hearing was “immaterial,” citing the court’s inherent authority to ask lawyers who have misled it to explain their actions. She also noted that the government did not represent at least three of the four people asked to testify, two of whom had expressed willingness to appear.

Richard Kling, a longtime defense attorney and Chicago-Kent College of Law professor, told the Chicago Tribune that the public rebuke of the U.S. attorney’s office and DOJ was extraordinary. Christopher Parente, who represented former defendant Brian Straw, accused the department of resisting accountability.

The hearing remains scheduled for Monday.