Douglas DePodesta
Role at the time: Former special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago Field Office, in a complaint filed by his lawyers
Response to this claim
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros falsely told his Justice Department superiors that Douglas DePodesta and his sister-in-law, defense lawyer Nancy DePodesta, conspired to destroy the Broadview Six case, and the pressure Boutros created led FBI leaders to order DePodesta to resign.
“To deflect attention from his own malfeasance, Boutros began a campaign within the Department of Justice to blame DePodesta for the unraveling of the case.”
Why we used this label
The reference point is Andrew Boutros's conduct in the Broadview Six prosecution and its aftermath, including his office's accounts of it to the court and DePodesta's allegation that Boutros blamed him for the case's collapse. DePodesta's complaint accuses Boutros of shifting the blame for the case's collapse onto him to deflect from his own conduct, a direct criticism of that conduct.