Mayor Brandon Johnson has repeatedly accepted campaign contributions from those doing business with City Hall since he took office — even though city ethics rules prohibit it.
And time after time Johnson’s campaign has returned such contributions when the giving has come to light or proved embarrassing.
Now, Friends of Brandon Johnson is readying to return another questionable contribution, for $250, but this time there’s an added twist to the narrative.
The donor, Robert Blackwell Jr., not only runs an IT consulting company called EKI-Digital that has done significant work for Chicago government. Blackwell and EKI are also the subject of a scathing report by Chicago’s inspector general that raises questions about whether the company overbilled taxpayers and completed all of the $9.6 million in tasks it invoiced for.
The inspector general also found that, amid a flurry of new technology work EKI was given by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s chief operating officer Paul Goodrich several years ago, Blackwell hired Goodrich’s young adult son for a paid internship, which potentially constitutes a serious ethical breach.
The inspector general report was released publicly in April, but the investigation started in June 2023 — less than a month after Johnson took office after beating Lightfoot in the primary election and then Paul Vallas in the runoff.
The investigation wrapped up last fall.
Blackwell gave Johnson’s campaign the $250 in a contribution dated March 31, 2025, according to Illinois State Board of Elections records.
It appears to be the first and only donation from Blackwell to Johnson.
The inspector general’s office is a semi-independent governmental agency that doesn’t answer to the mayor and investigates potential wrongdoing in the city bureaucracy.
A spokesman for Blackwell wouldn’t provide context for the contribution but said: “The contribution was made in error, Robert requested a refund as soon as he became aware of it” following questions from a reporter, “and the campaign said they would issue the refund.”
A spokesman for Johnson’s campaign said there indeed had been a conversation with Blackwell or his people, and Johnson’s fund soon would issue a refund.
An executive order signed by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011 as he took office bans “City contractors, owners of City contractors, spouses or domestic partners of owners of City Contractors, subcontractors to a City contractor on a City contract, owners of subcontractors to a City Contractor on a City contract, and spouses or domestic partners of owners of subcontractors to a City contractor on a City contract from making Contributions of any amount to the mayor.”
While EKI has done work for City Hall for decades, dating back to former Mayor Richard M. Daley, a revised contract with a cap of $105 million in payments was approved by the Johnson administration in the middle of 2023, with the deal stretching until 2027 for “information technology consulting and related services for various scope categories,” city records show.
The executive order says the “penalty” for violations of the ethics rules includes the ability of City Hall to terminate contracts and reject bids and other work proposals.
While the EKI work at the heart of the inspector general report was done during Lightfoot’s tenure, two top Johnson aides have had ties to the company, and one of them oversaw a subsequent inquiry into the billing and the decision to pay EKI $600,000 of the $9.6 million invoiced, as the Chicago Sun-Times recently reported.
Johnson’s administration also has allowed EKI to continue to perform other work, though the inspector general is recommending the company, now called Quant16, be forever banned from city business.
Blackwell has denied doing anything wrong, saying through the spokesman that all the work that was billed was performed and EKI has provided documentation to city officials showing that.
Johnson’s campaign has accepted and, following questions, returned contributions in recent years from companies or executives with city business involving janitorial, engineering, construction and equipment leasing services.
Friends of Brandon Johnson has also accepted millions of dollars from labor unions that negotiate with Johnson’s administration over collective bargaining, though that remains legal, and Johnson has declined to say whether that should be banned along the lines of contractors.
Johnson’s campaign recently accepted two contributions totaling $5,000 from Teamsters Local 743, which represents a handful of city-employed nurses.
Local 743 leader Debra Simmons-Peterson said any donations to Johnson have “nothing to do with my contract … I don’t operate like that.”