Chicago City Wire

A recent report from the Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) has detailed concerns over how Mayor Brandon Johnson handled gifts received since taking office. The OIG found that Johnson created a private room in City Hall to store high-value items, including designer handbags, expensive cufflinks, and men’s shoes. This move came after Johnson initially refused to grant the OIG access to these gifts.

The city’s municipal code requires all departments to provide the inspector general with access to premises, equipment, records, and other materials for oversight purposes. Despite this requirement, the OIG was denied entry twice before eventually being allowed to inspect the items.

Johnson has faced criticism for not disclosing these gifts promptly and for attempting to keep them hidden from both investigators and the public. He later stated that he planned to donate the gifts to charity but only after attempts were made to keep them off official records.

The OIG report criticized this approach: “When gifts are changing hands — perhaps literally — in a windowless room in City Hall, there is no opportunity for oversight and public scrutiny of the propriety of such gifts, the identities and intentions of the gift-givers, or what it means for gifts like whiskey, jewelry, handbags, and size 14 men’s shoes to be accepted ‘on behalf of the City.’”

Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg commented on broader issues with transparency: "Time and time again, we have observed that the City of Chicago operates at a deficit of legitimacy with its residents. For generations, government in this City has given people every reason to mistrust things that happen behind closed doors in City Hall," she wrote in a statement cited by Fox News. "The Mayor’s Office has taken the position here that it must open those doors to oversight only when it suits them to do so, and that position does little to chip away at mistrust or to pay down the deficit of legitimacy."

Austin Berg from the Illinois Policy Institute also weighed in: “This story is about so much more than just Johnson and these gifts,” Berg wrote. “This entire episode — the unwritten arrangement, the secret logs, the stonewalling from city lawyers — isn’t a fluke. It’s how Chicago operates.”

The controversy adds to previous criticisms faced by Johnson regarding transparency and adherence to rules during his tenure as mayor.