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Primary record · the strongest receipt

Dismissal-Hearing Transcript

On May 21, 2026, the United States Attorney moved to dismiss every remaining charge against the Broadview Six with prejudice. Judge April M. Perry granted the motion at the dismissal hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The 60-page official transcript of that hearing is the strongest single piece of evidence the project has.

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The full 60-page record, page by page. Use the jump links to land on the moments cited below, or search the text directly in the viewer.

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Pages 22-23 · the verbatim moment

What Judge Perry actually said, in her own words

Several news outlets paraphrased Judge Perry as saying she had never seen anything worse in her career. The actual on-record language is more specific. The two pages below are the load-bearing sequence.

Transcript page 22 of the May 21, 2026 dismissal hearing in USA v. Rabbitt et al.
Page 22
Transcript page 23 of the May 21, 2026 dismissal hearing in USA v. Rabbitt et al.
Page 23

By page and line

Key on-record moments

Every quote below is verbatim from the official transcript with its page-and-line citation. Reported-speech paraphrases from news outlets are not used here.

  1. p. 22, ll. 12-13

    Judge April M. Perry

    “I will say that I was incredibly shocked by the redactions that were made.”

    First on-record characterization of the grand-jury record by the presiding judge. Establishes the shock-level baseline before the deeper findings.

  2. p. 22, ll. 16-18

    Judge April M. Perry

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

    The verbatim source for the line news outlets paraphrased as "never seen anything worse in her career." This is the actual on-record finding, not the paraphrase.

  3. p. 23, ll. 10-13

    Judge April M. Perry

    “Mistakes happen. They happen to all of us. But as I tell my children, you own it. You admit to it. You apologize for it, and you move on. What you do not do is hide it.”

    Direct critique of the active concealment dimension — the redactions in particular — that elevated the conduct from negligence to bad-faith territory.

  4. p. 23, l. 25

    Judge April M. Perry

    “That trust has been broken.”

    One of the most-cited lines on the record. The court's relationship-with-the-government framing in five words.

  5. p. 40, ll. 15-17

    Defense counsel (Brian Straw's lawyer)

    “There is a weaponization fund that I think we are now eligible for. And I think people need to see what this DOJ is doing.”

    Primary-source confirmation that defense is aware of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and considering a filing. The strongest support the project has for /the-fund's claim about the defendants' stated intent.

  6. p. 53, ll. 13-15

    U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros

    “I too had not seen conduct like that like that, and it upset me, which is why we did dismiss that indictment...”

    The prosecutor's own on-record concession. Distinct from the reported-speech paraphrase "tainted by misconduct" that appeared in news coverage; this is the verbatim, not the paraphrase.

Where these quotes appear on the site

The Judge Perry verbatim moment at pp. 22-23 anchors the hero section on /the-case. The defense-counsel Fund-eligibility statement at p. 40 grounds the affirmative argument on /the-fund. The U.S. Attorney's admission at p. 53 supports the project's rhetorical posture across multiple pages, taking DOJ at their word on their own record.

Sources on this page