Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accepted many valuable gifts “on behalf of the city” but failed to report them, according to a new report from the city’s inspector general.
According to an advisory from Inspector General Deborah Witzburg, both Johnson and his predecessor, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, were not transparent about gifts they received. The city bans public officials from accepting gifts worth more than $50 unless they are accepted “on behalf of the city,” a stipulation that Johnson has been using in his defense.
Johnson received many valuable gifts, including luxury items such as Hugo Boss cufflinks, a personalized Montblanc pen, designer handbags from Givenchy and Kate Spade, and AirPods. The Montblanc pens start at $290, but his was likely higher in cost as it was personalized. The lowest-priced purse on the Givenchy website is listed at $450.
Lightfoot also received gifts that were not properly reported, including a bottle of Uncle Nearest 1856 premium-aged whiskey and a gift listed on the spreadsheet as “Always 24k Idols Pearl and Gold Elephant.”
In nearly 70% of the 380 logged gifts, the source of the gift was not identified. In total, Johnson accepted 236 gifts on behalf of the city, according to the log the inspector general finally obtained. By comparison, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot accepted 144 gifts between February 2022 and when she left office in May 2023, according to the report.
Witzburg said her investigators arrived to inspect the “gift room” to audit its contents and ensure that access to the valuables room on the fifth floor of City Hall was controlled. The inspectors, however, were denied access by Chicago police officers. They were told to wait in the lobby before they were told the room was only available by appointment.
The inspector general still has yet to gain access to the mayor’s “gift room” at City Hall in order to “inspect the manner in which gifts are stored, audit the presence of gifts that were purportedly stored in the gift room as stated in the gift log, or to review controls around access to the gift room,” according to the report.
City ordinance requires all city officials to comply with requests made by the inspector general and make available all records they request “as soon as practicable.” Johnson, however, said he would not allow the inspector general or her staff to make unannounced inspections of the gifts, claiming it is not required by city law.
At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, when the report was released, Johnson dismissed Witzburg’s findings into the gifts he received as “misguided” and a “mischaracterization,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
“I don’t want people to think, you all, that there’s some room in city government where there’s just a wall full of belts and socks and shoes and fancy hats,” Johnson told reporters. “There’s a log. It’s there. It’s been there for years. The only benefit that I get of being mayor is that I get to see the full breadth of what the greatest freakin’ city in the world looks like.”
Johnson defended his receiving gifts, saying they were gifts “to the city”—not to him personally. Even so, this raises questions about whether these luxurious gifts have been used to influence Johnson or previous mayors.
“It’s hard to imagine how exactly size 14 shoes would be used on behalf of the city,” Witzburg told the Chicago Sun-Times.
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“But they’re squirreled away in literally a windowless room at City Hall without any public reporting — in many cases, without any records of who the gifts are from or the circumstances under which they were received. That presents an enormous transparency and accountability problem,” Witzburg continued.
On the “gift room,” Johnson claimed he had never been there, telling reporters, “If people want a tour of this room, I’ll sign up because I’ve never been to it myself.”