Mayor Brandon Johnson rejects IG recommendation he fire top advisor
Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg has recommended that a top adviser to Mayor Brandon Johnson be fired and placed on a no-hire list for failing to cooperate with an investigation into City Hall’s handling of a negotiation with an alderman.
Johnson refused to fire the adviser, Jason Lee, and denied failing to cooperate with the investigation.
The back-and-forth was revealed in a summary report released Wednesday by the city’s top watchdog. Lee is not named by the inspector general’s office, which is generally prohibited from identifying officials by name, but he called the Tribune to defend its handling of the matter.
The Witzburg report stems from fall 2023 meetings between Lee and Ald. Bill Conway. At the time, Johnson advocated an increase in real estate transfer taxes on properties over $1 million to help fund homeless services citywide and an end to tipping for restaurant workers. Conway was seeking to remove an encampment near Union and Ogilvie stations that he said was a hot spot for drugs and violent crime in the neighborhood.
As part of his effort to have the tents removed, Conway spoke with Lee in early October 2023 while aldermen were at City Hall for meetings. Conway said he shared with Lee his concerns about weapons, propane tanks and drug packages recovered from the tent-filled overpasses.
Lee pulled Conway into a copy room behind the council chambers and offered to help remove the homeless camps, but Conway said he tied the action to the councilman supporting both of Johnson’s initiatives.
A day after their in-person conversation, Lee and Conway spoke on the phone again and Lee reiterated his requests, the alderman said. Conway remembers asking Lee if City Hall was capable of doing more than had already been done at the sites because it was running into bureaucratic issues.
Conway called the exchange improper and reported it to the inspector general. At the time, Lee took the unusual step of acknowledging that an alleged quid pro quo had taken place, calling it a prime example of “how political will is created.”
Witzburg’s investigation focused on whether Lee “engaged in misconduct related to the initial allegation that they conditioned essential city services on the support of an alderman for a leg supported by the mayor,” she said in her report. But the inspector general did not find sufficient evidence to support that claim, she wrote.
But, she said, Lee should be fired for failing to cooperate.
The inspector general’s office contacted Lee in October 2024 and spoke to him about scheduling an interview, according to the report. Lee said he would call back.
“The OIG did not receive a response and emailed the subject a few days later, suggesting an interview date later in November 2024,” the report said. “The subject responded by stating that a DOL attorney would attend the interview; the DOL attorney told the OIG that the subject could also retain a private attorney.”
The inspector general said he declined to interview Lee in the presence of a city attorney and sent written questions in February. Lee did not respond by deadline.
After the inspector general sent his findings to the mayor’s office in June, Lee’s private attorney contacted the inspector general’s office to say he intended to cooperate.
“The attorney, however, was unable to provide documentation indicating that he had actually emailed OIG, and OIG never received any communication from the attorney until the Mayor’s Office received notice – and apparently informed the subject and/or his attorney – of OIG’s intent to take disciplinary action for the subject’s lack of cooperation,” the inspector general wrote. “Under these circumstances, OIG declined to reopen its investigation and informed the Mayor’s Office that it continued to recommend the subject’s release.”
Johnson’s office concluded that it was “unjustifiable” to fire Lee because the inspector general had made cooperation difficult for Lee, in part by refusing to question him in the presence of a city attorney.
The question of whether city lawyers can attend interviews and when they can assert attorney-client privilege was a crucial controversy between Witzburg and the Johnson administration earlier this year.
Witzburg accused the mayor-controlled law department in a letter to aldermen of obstructing investigations that “could lead to embarrassment or political consequences for city leaders” during different mayoral terms.
A compromise ordinance passed by aldermen clarified that Law Department attorneys may attend investigative interviews in certain circumstances, including when an interviewee requests to be summoned by a city attorney and the Law Department agrees, when pending or threatened litigation is involved or when the inspector general gives approval.
The compromise agreement also clarifies that city attorneys can invoke attorney-client privilege to withhold documents requested by the inspector general’s office, but requires the law department to provide the office with a log of withheld documents and discuss whether those documents can ultimately be shared. The office will also be able to examine certain equipment equipped with protections.
In an interview with the Tribune on Tuesday, Lee criticized the inspector general’s office for taking nearly a year to contact him. He also said the law passed over the summer proved he was right all along. The inspector general’s report notes that the changes to the law “did not take effect until more than six months after the events in question.”
“I tried in good faith to participate,” Lee said.
