There is no wrong answer
Brandon Johnson — better known around these parts as Mayor 6.6 — has a gift. Not a good gift. More like the uncanny ability to take a bad idea, execute it incompetently, explain it dishonestly, and then act wounded when someone notices. He does this so regularly that Chicagoans have begun to ask a perfectly fair question: When the mayor says something demonstrably untrue, is he lying, or does he simply not know what he’s talking about?
Sometimes the distinction matters. Most of the time, it doesn’t.
The latest case in point is Johnson’s grandstanding executive order aimed at “laying the groundwork” to prosecute federal immigration agents — specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection — for alleged criminal misconduct in Chicago. This is the new Democratic cause du jour: If you can’t beat the president at the ballot box, try to criminalize his administration’s law enforcement officers one jurisdiction at a time.
Johnson unveiled the order with all the solemnity of a man convinced he was making history. Chicago, he said, would be the first city in America to “set the groundwork” for prosecuting federal agents. CPD would gather evidence. Files would be preserved. Accountability would be imposed.
It was bold. It was defiant. It was also, almost certainly, nonsense.
The authority problem
The first question any sentient adult should have asked before issuing such an order is simple: Can a city do this? And the answer, grounded in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and two centuries of federal jurisprudence, is probably not — at least not in the sweeping, chest-thumping way Johnson suggested.
Federal agents acting within the scope of their duties enjoy broad protections from state and local prosecution. That doesn’t mean they’re above the law; it means disputes over alleged misconduct are ordinarily handled through federal courts, internal discipline, or the Department of Justice — not through a mayor’s press conference.
You cannot, for example, have the City of Chicago “prosecute the FBI for doing its job.” You can’t have CPD function as a political surveillance arm collecting dossiers on federal officers because City Hall doesn’t like federal policy. That’s not accountability; that’s cosplay constitutionalism.
Johnson either didn’t understand this, or he did and chose to ignore it.
The walk-back heard ’round City Hall
Within days, the bravado began to collapse.
Standing at City Hall on Tuesday, Johnson suddenly discovered humility. Prosecuting federal agents, he now said, was not up to him at all. It was up to the Cook County State’s Attorney, Eileen O’Neill Burke. He personally wasn’t “looking at cases.” He lacked jurisdiction. He was merely creating a “pathway.”
This was quite a shift from Saturday, when he claimed Burke’s office had full support for the order.
Burke promptly contradicted him. Publicly. Bluntly. “Not true,” she said -- adding she had learned about the order the same way everyone else did: By reading the newspapers.
Johnson’s response? A classic bureaucratic weasel. Oh, he hadn’t consulted Burke exactly, you see — just someone somewhere in her office, who maybe provided feedback on some language, or perhaps merely existed in the same building. The state’s attorney’s office rebuked that claim too.
At this point, we’re no longer in policy disagreement territory. We’re in credibility free-fall.
Liar or dense — revisited
So, which is it?
If Johnson knew from the start he lacked the authority to do what he announced, then he misled the public to score political points against President Donald Trump. That’s lying.
It just goes to show you that all politics has been conflated to national politics in blue jurisdictions — that’s the Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) effect.
If, on the other hand, he genuinely believed the mayor of Chicago could unilaterally set in motion the criminal prosecution of federal officers — and only learned otherwise after being corrected by the state’s attorney and legal experts — then we’re dealing with breathtaking incompetence.
Either way, the result is the same: A mayor who talks big, knows little, and governs by improvisation.
Progressive power theater
Johnson insists this is about “accountability” and building “progressive power.” He even name-checked Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has flirted with similar ideas. But notably absent from that coalition is Eileen O’Neill Burke, a more moderate Democrat who understands prosecutorial discretion is not an X hashtag.
Johnson’s strategy chief says claims of federal immunity are “not the law.” Maybe. But the test of that proposition is not a mayoral decree — it’s a courtroom, with real judges, real motions, and real consequences. So far, Johnson isn’t even pretending to go there.
Instead, we get vagueness. “Guidelines” in 30 days. No specific cases. No timeline. No acknowledgment the entire scheme may be legally DOA.
This isn’t governance. It’s performance art.
Meanwhile, back in reality
While City Hall wages rhetorical war on federal agents, Chicago remains a city with real problems: Violent crime, a hollowed-out downtown, a transit system that feels unsafe, and a budget teetering on the edge. The CTA is still a rolling crime scene. Repeat offenders still roam freely. Illegal guns still circulate like candy.
Yet the one group Mayor 6.6 seems eager to “hold accountable” is not criminals, but law enforcement officers from outside his ideological tribe.
It’s hard not to notice the inversion of priorities.
A familiar pattern
This episode fits a pattern. Johnson announces something dramatic. The media dutifully reports it. Adults in the room point out fatal flaws. Johnson retreats, reframes, and claims he was misunderstood. Responsibility is shifted. Authority is disclaimed. And somehow, we’re told this all still counts as leadership.
It doesn’t.
Leadership requires knowing what you can do before you promise to do it. It requires honesty when you’re corrected. It requires respect for the rule of law — not just when it flatters your politics.
One term was one too many
In the end, whether Mayor 6.6 is a liar, dense, or some inefficient combination of both is almost beside the point. What matters is that Chicago has a mayor who cannot be trusted to tell the truth about his own powers, who announces policies before understanding them, and who uses the machinery of city government to audition for national progressive applause.
That’s not just embarrassing. It’s dangerous.
Chicago deserves better than a mayor who governs by press release and retreats by footnote. One term was one too many.
