Donald Trump’s Justice Department has acknowledged that serious “missteps” occurred during a politically charged prosecution in Chicago.

But the concession arrived only after defense attorneys demanded something far more threatening: an independent prosecutor with the power to pursue criminal contempt charges against the federal lawyers involved.

Now the DOJ is urging a judge to stop before its internal conduct becomes the subject of an outside criminal investigation.

“The Court’s message has been clearly heard,” government attorneys insisted in a new filing. “There is no need to do more.”

U.S. District Judge April Perry may not be convinced.

The controversy emerged from the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Chicago, launched after Trump warned on Truth Social that the city was “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Two days later, the administration began Operation Midway Blitz, a sweeping deportation operation that provoked protests and confrontations across the city.

Federal prosecutors charged six protesters with felony conspiracy under a statute reportedly never before used by the district.

Securing the indictment took three attempts.

What happened inside those grand-jury proceedings now threatens to produce consequences not only for the original case, but also for the prosecutors who presented it.

According to court records, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sheri Mecklenburg told the first group of grand jurors that she had selected them because they knew and trusted her.

They nevertheless refused to indict.

During a second presentation, one juror reportedly said the case appeared to be “a crock of s—” when it was first presented and remained one.

Mecklenburg responded by telling the skeptical juror, “Then you have to go—.”

Before the third attempt, Mecklenburg disclosed that she had privately spoken with two grand jurors in a hallway, outside the formal jury room.

Prosecutors ultimately obtained the indictment.

But Judge Perry later discovered that more than 80 pages of the grand-jury proceedings had reportedly been removed from the transcripts initially provided to her. Those omitted portions included the exchanges now at the center of the misconduct dispute.

After examining the complete, unredacted record, Perry delivered a devastating assessment.

“I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury,” she said during a May hearing. “Trust has been broken.”

Defense attorneys now want the court to appoint outside counsel who would operate independently of the attorney general and determine whether criminal contempt proceedings are warranted.

That request has placed the Justice Department in the extraordinary position of defending its own prosecutors from the possibility of prosecution.

The department warns that appointing independent counsel could expose privileged internal materials, including legal advice, office memoranda, work product and communications among federal agencies.

It also argues that its own corrective actions make further judicial intervention unnecessary.

Prosecutors say the case has been referred to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal unit responsible for examining attorney misconduct. The Chicago office has also implemented new policies, practices and training.

“Recognizing that missteps occurred in this case,” the DOJ filing stated, the office examined the causes of the errors and adopted substantial reforms intended to prevent them from happening again.

But the scale of the department’s response suggests the concerns extend far beyond one unfortunate exchange.

Officials are reportedly reviewing potentially more than 1,000 grand-jury transcripts for similar problems. Mecklenburg’s presentations dating back to 2007 are being audited, and a separate case has already been dismissed after investigators uncovered additional grand-jury irregularities.

That makes the Justice Department’s plea for restraint difficult to separate from the possibility of much broader institutional exposure.

Defense attorneys argue that an internal review cannot provide meaningful accountability when the alleged misconduct may reach senior officials inside the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office—and potentially the Justice Department in Washington.

“No one can credibly investigate themselves,” they wrote.

The defendants have not established that every prosecutor involved committed a crime. Judge Perry has not yet appointed outside counsel, and no criminal contempt charge has been filed.

Prosecutorial errors, even serious ones, do not automatically amount to criminal contempt. An outside attorney would still need to investigate the evidence and determine whether any conduct satisfied the demanding legal requirements for prosecution.

Yet the underlying allegations go to the integrity of one of the federal justice system’s most secretive institutions.

Grand juries are supposed to evaluate evidence independently. Prosecutors possess enormous influence because defense attorneys are ordinarily absent, judges do not supervise every exchange, and the proceedings occur behind closed doors.

Telling skeptical jurors to leave, privately communicating with panel members and withholding extensive portions of the transcript from a federal judge could undermine that independence.

The case therefore presents Judge Perry with a stark choice.

She can accept the Justice Department’s assurance that it recognizes its mistakes and can police itself.

Or she can conclude that trust has been damaged too severely—and allow an independent prosecutor to discover whether those “missteps” were something more.

The DOJ says the judge’s warning was enough.

After more than 1,000 transcripts entered the review pile, that may be the hardest argument of all to believe.