The rift between Mayor Brandon Johnson and the inspector general he inherited got wider Tuesday over efforts to remove what chief watchdog Deborah Witzburg views as roadblocks impeding her internal investigations.
Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry fired back two weeks after Witzburg accused Johnson and his predecessor Lori Lightfoot of withholding documents, selectively enforcing subpoenas and demanding to have the Law Department sit in on interviews that “risk embarrassment” to the mayor.
It happened after Richardson-Lowry was asked to explain why she and Johnson are holding up an ordinance introduced by Ald. Matt Martin (47th), the mayor’s hand-picked Ethics Committee chairman. That proposal is tailor-made to remove the investigative impediments Witzburg cited by implementing every change she asked the City Council to make.
No longer would the Law Department be free to invoke attorney-client privilege or pick and choose which subpoenas from the inspector general are complied with. There would be “no room for discretion” concerning IG subpoenas, just as there isn’t with subpoenas issued by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
And the mayor’s lawyers could no longer intimidate witnesses in cases involving employees of the mayor’s office by demanding to sit in on their interviews with the inspector general’s office.
Richardson-Lowry argued Martin’s ordinance is “inconsistent” with state law and the municipal code. It also violates an Illinois Supreme Court decision and removes “30 years of guardrails” that have provided “protections afforded every city worker.”
It also “undermines a fundamental principle that is sacrosanct” for city attorneys who are “public servants — not political animals.”
Requests for subpoenas are analyzed to determine whether “evidentiary standards” are met, the corporation counsel said. When the inspector general’s request does not meet that standard, it “gets sent back to the department” for more evidence by attorneys with “licenses to protect,” she said.
Just because the inspector general “advances an item for our review or prosecution” doesn’t mean the request should be granted without “legal analysis,” Richardson-Lowry said. To do so would be “inconsident with the attorney-client privilege we’re obligated to uphold,” she said.
“It’s a complete departure from every head of that office from my memory. … It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the law and of the obligations of that office. But mostly, it would dismantle guardrails so that the person charged with looking at fraud waste and abuse would become an abuser. That can’t be allowed,” she said.
“If what comes over is deficient, what that means there is a person that would be prosecuted inappropriately. We can’t do that. That’s inconsistent with how every other federal body operates — and I see them all. No one … has taken that posture.”
Witzburg stood her ground.
She said she has been working to remove impediments to her internal investigations for years and raised the issue with Johnson’s transition team and in her first meeting with Richardson-Lowry.
Witzburg agreed she is requesting a trailblazing change, but only because “none of us is here to do our jobs the same way our predecessors did them,” she said.
“No one should look out at the government accountability landscape in Chicago and in Illinois right now and think that the status-quo is good enough.”
Witzburg also argued there is “nothing radical” about her proposed changes, which simply “bring Chicago into line with national standards and federal law.”
“What we have done so far isn’t good enough. We live in a city where the `Chicago Way’ is a proper noun. We live in a city where the government operates at a tremendous deficit of legitimacy. We’re not gonna change that by wishing it away,” the inspector general said.
“What goes on now means that the mayor’s lawyers choose who is subject to investigation and who isn’t. What records are subject to oversight and which aren’t. We can’t do it that way. Oversight cannot be limited by political interests.”
Tuesday’s heated debate fanned the flames of tensions between the mayor and his internal watchdog that exist, no matter who is sitting on the fifth floor of City Hall. Inspectors general serve four-year terms; Witzburg’s is up in April 2026.
Joe Ferguson, a former federal prosecutor, served together with former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the U.S. attorney’s office. When he was appointed by former Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2009 to replace departing Inspector General David Hoffman, Lightfoot was among those who recommended him.
Tthat close relationship initially raised questions about just how independent Ferguson would be in a Lightfoot administration. But it wasn’t long before Ferguson’s aggressive investigations alienated Lightfoot. The two clashed openly and repeatedly, and she ultimately forced him out.