The legal bill for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s March 5 appearance before a Congressional hearing on “sanctuary” jurisdictions has now ballooned to $800,000, according to invoices obtained by The Denver Gazette.

City financial documents show that on Nov. 5, 2025, a third payment of $250,000 was made from the city’s general fund to the D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling, LLP, citing the same purchase order, PO-00163290, as the two earlier payments that totaled $550,000.

The firm was hired to represent the city and Johnston during his appearance before a Congressional hearing on “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Under the one-year contract with a maximum cap of $2 million, the city will pay lawyers a “discounted” rate of $1,000 per hour.

“Our team worked very hard to keep costs related to the hearing — which we did not ask to attend — to the absolute minimum while still offering the mayor and the City of Denver legal counsel befitting a hearing of this magnitude and consequence,” Johnston spokesperson Jon Ewing reiterated on Tuesday.

Ewing confirmed the third payment but was unclear whether this would be the city’s final invoice from the law firm.

“We’re still working with Covington on the invoice process,” he said. 

Johnston, along with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and New York Mayor Eric Adams, was summoned to appear before Congress to answer questions about “sanctuary” policies and their response to the illegal immigration crisis, which has been spilling from the southern U.S. border into America’s interior cities. The request came within weeks of President Donald Trump being sworn into his second term.

In Boston, the legal cost to Mayor Michelle Wu stood at $650,000 earlier this year. 

Wu retained the New York City-based law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel, at a rate of $950 an hour, as reported earlier by WFXT Boston. She defended the costs, saying they were necessary amid threats to jail her, according to The Boston Herald.

Johnston, along with four staff members — Chief of Staff Jenn Ridder, Senior Advisor for Strategy and Planning Mary Bowman, Acting City Attorney Katie McLoughlin and Press Secretary Jordan Fuja — traveled to Washington, D.C. for the March 5 hearing.

Travel and lodging costs for the trip totaled $11,318, according to information received by The Denver Gazette through a Colorado Open Records Act request.

The five travelers’ airfare accounted for $2,717, the meals cost $1,380, and a majority of the trip’s overall tab went to hotel expenses at $7,221.

A spokesperson for Johnston’s office noted that the reason hotel and travel costs were pricey is that President Donald Trump delivered an address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025, the day before the scheduled Congressional hearing.

There were no affordable rooms at the time, the source said.

Johnston and Denver’s policies have been at odds with Trump and his administration’s immigration priorities since the president assumed office in January. Johnston also made headlines for saying he would be willing to go to jail to defend his city’s immigration stance, a statement that drew both praise and criticism.

Last May, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Colorado and Denver, alleging their policies are interfering with the job of immigration officers in a case that could have ramifications for enforcement nationwide.

The lawsuit, filed in Colorado District Court, claimed both the state and Denver have enacted “sanctuary laws” in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the latest in a series of actions by the president cracking down on “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

In defending his actions, Johnston said helping the immigrants, many of whom arrived in the dead of winter in Colorado, was the moral thing to do, and that housing them meant keeping thousands from becoming homeless.  

Denver has already filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration to protect federal funding, and it recently filed two amicus briefs pushing back against the president’s use of National Guard troops to enforce federal immigration policy in U.S. cities.