CHICAGO — Veteran Chicago lawyer and former federal prosecutor Andrew Boutros is expected to be appointed by the Trump administration to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, sources told the Chicago Tribune.

Boutros, 47, now the co-chair of the government investigations and white collar group at Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP in Chicago, was among those vetted for the White House by U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a Peoria Republican, who conducted several rounds of interviews over the past month, several sources familiar with the process said.

The sources told the Tribune that Boutros was not among those LaHood recommended for the position, however. LaHood instead forwarded the names of two other former assistant U.S. attorneys, Jeffrey Cramer and Mark Schneider, as well as Brendan O’Leary, an ex-Cook County prosecutor and FBI special agent who headed the public corruption squad in Chicago, according to sources.

The Trump Administration selected Boutros after LaHood met with senior members of the administration last week, the sources said.

The move had not been formally announced by the Trump administration as of Tuesday. A Department of Justice spokesperson did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Boutros declined to comment.

Boutros’ appointment would bring some stability to an office more than two years after John Lausch stepped down as Chicago’s top federal prosecutor.

By giving Boutros interim status, the White House bypasses the immediate need for Boutros to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. That process would kick in once the Trump administration selects someone for the permanent post.

Either way, Boutros is expected to inject new energy into an office that has long been considered one of the best in the country but has seen productivity and morale slip in recent years.

Known as a diligent attorney and an extremely hard worker, Boutros is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Egypt. He attended Virginia Tech University and earned his 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.

Chicago attorney Renato Mariotti, whose career in the U.S. attorney’s office largely overlapped with Boutros, said his former colleague is a solid selection who “understands the traditions of the office.”

“Andrew is a go-getter. He’s a grinder and he’s driven,” said Mariotti, now a partner at Paul Hastings LLP. “There are some people who float through life and everything is given to them. That is not Andrew Boutros.”

Mariotti said he got to know Boutros well early on when they teamed up to prosecute a major gang case against the Maniac Latin Disciples.

Later, Boutros prosecuted Cornelis Jan Slomp, also known as “SuperTrips,” a trafficker on the now-defunct Silk Road site who moved millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs before cooperating with the government against Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

He also led the prosecution into what became known as “Honeygate,” targeting the illegal importation of cheap and occasionally contaminated honey from China in what was described as the largest food fraud investigation and prosecution in history.

One of Boutros’ other notable cases took down former Edgewater Medical Center owner Peter Rogan, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2015 for trying to thwart collection of more than $188 million in civil judgments, in part by moving funds to offshore accounts in the Bahamas.

After leaving the U.S. attorney’s office in 2015, Boutros joined Seyfarth Shaw as co-chair of its white collar, internal investigations and false claims practice. He moved to a similar role at Shook Hardy & Bacon last year.

Boutros has also lectured at the University of Chicago Law School since 2011 and published two books on white collar law.

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 more than 300 employees, including about 140 prosecutors.

The office has recently secured convictions in several major public corruption cases, including the trials of former Ald. Edward Burke and former 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.

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.

When he announced the search for a new U.S. attorney was underway, LaHood, a former state and federal prosecutor, noted that there has been no Senate-confirmed top prosecutor in Chicago since Lausch departed in March 2023, and the latest statistics show the once-vaunted office now has “one of the lower indictment rates across the country.”

“The importance of selecting a strong U.S. attorney who will understand the importance of implementing and enforcing our immigration laws, fight to stop rampant and rising criminal activity in Chicago, support our brave men and women in law enforcement, and prevent corruption is now more critical than ever,” LaHood said in a statement.

He added that “ensuring the policies and priorities of the Trump administration” will be implemented in Illinois will have to be a top focus of any candidate.

Trump, meanwhile, has drawn criticism for naming a series of interim U.S. attorneys instead of appointing permanent replacements that would have to undergo scrutiny by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Among them was Ed Martin, a Trump acolyte and defense attorney for numerous clients accused in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, who is now interim U.S. attorney for Washington D.C.

On Monday, the president named Alina Habba, his personal attorney-turned-White House counselor, to serve as the next interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.

Mariotti said that unlike those selections, Boutros is a savvy attorney with a lengthy track record both as a prosecutor and defense attorney. He also knows acting U.S. attorney Morris “Sonny” Pasqual and at one point was his supervisor.

“He has a very high opinion of Sonny and that should make for a smooth transition there, which is good for Chicago,” Mariotti said.

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