CHICAGO — Chicago’s newly appointed U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said Tuesday he’s committed to balancing the storied office’s traditional areas of focus with new policy directives coming from the Trump administration, from immigration to narcotics and human trafficking by international cartels.

In his first interview since assuming the powerful law enforcement post three weeks ago, however, Boutros said he’ll be doing it with less manpower than in recent years, as there are now fewer than 100 federal criminal prosecutors and a hiring freeze mandated by the president that has no end in sight.

“I didn’t take this job because I thought it would be easy,” Boutros told a group of reporters who cover the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. “I took this job knowing full well that there are tremendous pressures and expectations put on being U.S. attorney. … I expect this to be a tough job. But I believe and continue to believe that I am the right person for this job and I will work tirelessly to carry out the mandate to the best of my ability.”

Boutros, a veteran Chicago lawyer and former federal prosecutor here, was sworn in April 7 as the 42nd U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, leading an office of about 130 criminal and civil attorneys and dozens more support staff that has long been recognized as one of the busiest and most prominent in the country.

He said that shortly after he started, he assembled the entire office in the large ceremonial courtroom on the 25th Floor of the courthouse, where he quoted Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s famous speech to West Point cadets about “duty, honor, country.”

“That was a north-star speech,” he said, adding he tailored it to their mission to fight crime, protect citizens, and carry out the mandate of the office.

Boutros takes the helm in a time where the Trump administration has made its priorities clear. He serves at the pleasure of those above him, Boutros said.

Asked about a series of executive orders this week by Trump targeting sanctuary cities like Chicago, Boutros said in terms of criminal work, “we follow the evidence and we make charging decisions all the time.”

“I don’t see that changing at all,” he said. “Obviously as the U.S. attorney, we’re supposed to focus on the areas of priority as have been announced by our president, our attorney general, our deputy attorney general. And they’ve made very clear announcements and issued various executive orders and various policy directives about what our areas of focus are.”

Boutros said that every administration brings its own priorities to bear, and the current one is no different. He said that while the focus so far has been on immigration and narcotics, the U.S. attorney’s office will still prioritize combating violence, public corruption and fraud.

He said he’s already met with many law enforcement leaders around the city, including Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling, whom he’s talked to “more than once,” describing those conversations as “wonderful.”

“Really excited to be partnering with him and the Chicago police department,” Boutros said.

Those remarks came a day after Snelling was asked at an unrelated news conference about dealing with federal immigration authorities seeking to detain undocumented residents.

“When it comes to ICE, we haven’t dealt with ICE in that way,” Snelling said. “Being a sanctuary city (with) the welcoming city ordinance, we follow the law. That’s what we do. However, we work hand-in-hand with our federal partners, especially as it relates to drug trafficking, sex trafficking (and) violent crimes.”

Boutros also takes over during a period of declining productivity for the office that began with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And the first months of the Trump administration have brought unprecedented turmoil among the ranks of the U.S. Justice Department, where the White House has inserted itself in several criminal matters, putting a political tinge on cases such as the prosecution of New York Mayor Eric Adams and leading to a series of high-profile resignations.

During the wide-ranging discussion, Boutros was asked whether he agreed with a recent statement on social media by U.S. Attorney Edward Martin, a Trump acolyte, that U.S. attorneys were essentially “Trump’s lawyers.”

“Look, I’m the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, I am not a politician, OK?” Boutros replied. “I don’t need to speak for anyone else. I’m the federal prosecutor here … and that is my area of focus. And when I get up or we get up, we say, “Andrew Boutros on behalf of the United States.”

Boutros, 47, is a first-generation American whose parents emigrated from Egypt. He attended Virginia Tech University and earned a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2001.

Boutros spent eight years as a federal prosecutor under then-U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, bringing a number of high-profile and complex prosecutions involving everything from international trade to dark web narcotics conspiracy.

He’d most recently served as co-chair of the government investigations and white-collar group at Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP in Chicago.

Boutros was selected by the Trump administration after a search process run by Republican U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, of Peoria. Boutros was appointed as an interim U.S. attorney, which means he was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate. His term runs for 120 days or until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed.

On Tuesday, Boutros said he’s been meeting individually with each employee of the office, and that there are a series of big new initiatives in the works, including an announcement about a new push to combat violent crime, though he declined to provide details.

Other changes, he said, “are really on the margins,” given that the office has plenty of driven, top-notch prosecutors already in place.

“It’s about sort of tweaking things and fine-timing things or tuning up engines,” he said. “We’re very very fortunate that we don’t have to rebuild an engine here.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago was long considered one of the busiest in the nation, handling everything from terrorism, gang conspiracies and bank robberies to financial fraud and political corruption.

The office has recently secured convictions in several major public corruption cases, including the trials of former Ald. Edward Burke and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, two Democratic titans whose decades holding the reins of power culminated in separate guilty verdicts over the past year.

But while those high-profile cases have played out, the U.S. attorney’s office’s overall productivity has declined, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic virtually shut down the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in 2020 and parts of 2021, followed by an extended period without a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney at the helm.

The Tribune reported earlier this month that the office had sunk to dead last in the country in some key metrics in 2024, including the number of indictments filed per judgeship in the district.

The decline accelerated after John Lausch stepped down as Chicago’s top federal prosecutor in March 2023. Since then, Lausch’s former deputy, longtime prosecutor Morris “Sonny” Pasqual, has served as acting U.S. attorney.

Boutros said Tuesday that like anything else, he will have to “try to make the most out of the situation you are presented with.”

“Doing nothing or not trying to come up with new ideas is really not an option,” he said. “It’s not an alternative. We have to be successful and we have to do everything we can to try our very best.”

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(Tribune reporter Sam Charles contributed to this story.)

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