Chicago’s Inspector General dropped a bombshell report revealing that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office improperly blocked public access to a special room within City Hall containing gifts to the city – including designer handbags, cufflinks, and a personalized Mont Blanc pen.
A new report from Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s office concludes that Johnson’s office violated a city ethics policy requiring that any gifts valued at more than $50 and “accepted on behalf of the city” be logged into a book that is made available to the public on the 5th floor of City Hall.
But when two undercover investigators from the IG’s office visited the mayor’s office last June, they were denied access to the log, and instead told to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to see it.
Then, when the IG’s office filed a FOIA request, the mayor’s office refused to respond to it on time – only to provide an incomplete spreadsheet of the gifts more than a month after the request was filed.
“That’s certainly concerning to me,” said Witzburg. ” Where there’s anything of value being exchanged, we would absolutely want to know whether those gifts are coming from people looking for influence in some way — whether those are lobbyists, or people doing business with the city.”
Hellbound and Down 