{"id":764609,"date":"2026-04-30T23:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764609\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T23:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:02:17","slug":"former-inspector-general-joins-illinois-attorney-generals-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/764609\/","title":{"rendered":"Former inspector general joins Illinois attorney general\u2019s office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg<\/a> is joining Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul\u2019s office just days after her term as the city\u2019s top watchdog ended<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the quick change, Witzburg will become Raoul\u2019s chief of staff, a top slot for the state\u2019s public attorney. She starts Friday, Raoul said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeborah served the city of Chicago with distinction, and her experience as inspector general and a former prosecutor gives her perspective to lead the office prioritizing efficiency and integrity,\u201d Raoul said in a statement Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Witzburg declined to comment when called, but praised the office in the statement.<\/p>\n

The former inspector general garnered a reputation for high-profile investigations, some of which saw her butt heads with Mayor Brandon Johnson and his administration.<\/p>\n

She shared a report recommending Johnson\u2019s top adviser, Jason Lee, be fired for failing to cooperate with an investigation into a negotiation with an alderman, traded jabs with the mayor\u2019s top attorney, Mary Richardson-Lowry, over legislation<\/a> governing the city Law Department\u2019s role in inspector general investigations and slammed the mayor\u2019s office for blocking her team\u2019s inquiries into his City Hall gift closet.<\/p>\n

Johnson, who recently called the gift closet report \u201creprehensible,\u201d appeared poised to not appoint Witzburg to a second term when she announced last July that she would not seek one. At the time, she had for months argued she deserved the second go.<\/p>\n

The mayor told WBEZ\u2019s \u201cIn The Loop\u201d program earlier this month that her work was \u201cdisingenuous\u201d and \u201cwoefully politicized.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an exit interview with the Tribune, she seemed to view his condemnation as a badge of honor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a mayor felt warm and fuzzy about their inspector general, we wouldn\u2019t be doing our job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Johnson announced Monday that he would appoint former high-ranking federal prosecutor David Glockner<\/a> to be the city\u2019s next inspector general. Glockner, who also held high-level legal roles at Citadel and most recently energy giant Exelon, must still be approved by the City Council.<\/p>\n

The appointee declined to speak with the press through a mayoral aide, a potential sign that he could deviate from Witzburg\u2019s openness to publicizing her investigations through interviews once they were released.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Witzburg, who graduated from the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and also served as an assistant Cook County state\u2019s attorney before rising up through the Chicago inspector general\u2019s office before her appointment, joins an office that has routinely embraced public fights with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

She had declined to say what her next steps would be just two weeks ago. And she declined to say, too, if she would ever consider running for office in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg is joining Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul\u2019s office just days after her…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":764610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5404,5386,1818,1370,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-764609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-cook-county","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116496154700473524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}