{"id":750052,"date":"2026-04-24T14:53:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/750052\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T14:53:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T14:53:49","slug":"outgoing-watchdog-notes-chicagos-deficit-of-legitimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/750052\/","title":{"rendered":"Outgoing watchdog notes Chicago’s ‘deficit of legitimacy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Mayor Brandon Johnson mulls her successor, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg<\/a> has returned to one of her favorite phrases.<\/p>\n

Chicago, she told the Tribune during an interview as part of a media tour before she leaves office<\/a>, \u201coperates at a deficit of legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leader of this famously corrupt city\u2019s most visible watchdog agency has long described her work as \u201cpaying down\u201d that gap in trust. In four years at the helm of the Office of Inspector General, she has certainly presented an invoice.<\/p>\n

Her departure gives Johnson a new challenge: Tasked with selecting her successor, the mayor must convince aldermen\u00a0the person he nominates to follow Witzburg will be a strong independent investigator who will hold him and his administration to account.<\/p>\n

The outgoing inspector general \u2014 a witty and outspoken leader well-liked in the City Council, disfavored by the mayor and unshy of fight \u2014 says she chose to not seek another term, a decision she announced in July after previously making a forceful push to keep the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a huge amount of work left to do, and I\u2019m really proud of the progress we\u2019ve made,\u201d Witzburg said earlier this week. \u201cThat is the right time to leave a job like this. I will leave this office more effective and more independent than I found it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The confident note she struck ignores the reality complicating her departure, that she probably was not going to get the choice to say.<\/p>\n

Witzburg faced bad odds of winning reappointment from Johnson, a frequent target of her politically damaging investigations and opponent in legislative pushes. The mayor recently poked again at their many contentious run-ins by calling one of her most-publicized investigations into his administration \u201creprehensible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever he picks will face close scrutiny from the council. The mayor is currently vetting candidates and has until May 12 to make a final decision, Johnson press secretary Allison Novelo said in a Wednesday statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration is moving through the process as expected and will share an update once that process is complete,\u201d Novelo said.<\/p>\n

In an exit interview with the Tribune this week, Witzburg touted how she led and reformed the office. And she again criticized Johnson\u2019s responses to her work, arguing they show how his administration seeks to duck accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we see a pattern of decisions, we are entitled and may be obligated to see them as just that, as a pattern,\u201d Witzburg said. \u201cWhen that pattern walks and talks like hostility to oversight, sometimes it\u2019s just hostility to oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witzburg referred, explicitly and indirectly, to several high-profile dust-ups between her office and Johnson\u2019s.<\/p>\n

She cited the administration\u2019s repeated decision to not comply with requests for records to which she argues she was entitled. That dispute flared most recently when the city\u2019s Law Department declined to share hiring records while arguing an exemption was merited because of the new employee\u2019s \u201chigh profile\u201d status, a complaint detailed in a March report her office published.<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg mingles on June 23, 2025, at the City Club. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

She also pointed to how Johnson initially ignored her calls for city government to root out extremism within the Chicago Police Department, a move she said \u201creally surprised\u201d her given its alignment with Johnson\u2019s political views.<\/p>\n

She did not bring up Johnson\u2019s initial pushback against an ethics ordinance she proposed in the City Council. An altered version of the measure passed in July, after the first go was stoutly rejected as \u201ca calculated endeavor to expand the Inspector General\u2019s authority beyond its prescribed limits\u201d by Johnson\u2019s top attorney, Mary Richardson-Lowry.<\/p>\n

The compromise that passed restricted when Law Department attorneys can attend Office of Inspector General interviews and laid out when city attorneys can claim attorney-client privilege to avoid sharing records sought by the inspector general.<\/p>\n

Johnson and Witzburg continue to disagree on their most-heated quarrel: the debate over the mayor\u2019s gift room.<\/p>\n

Witzburg last January published a report detailing Johnson\u2019s gift-receiving practices, blasting the mayor for blocking her investigators from the room where they were stored.<\/p>\n

The report made note of apparently high-priced items: a Gucci tote bag, a Montblanc pen, designer cuff links, Carrucci shoes. The publication \u2014 and, in particular, the careful description of the valuables \u2014 sparked dozens of media reports.<\/p>\n

Johnson the same day slammed it as a \u201cmischaracterization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a process that everybody has to go through. Nobody is above the law,\u201d he said of Witzburg\u2019s claim that her investigators were unduly blocked. \u201cThere is a clear process.\u201d<\/p>\n