Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White today said she will issue an order requiring the city not only to fulfill all outstanding subpoena requests by the Baltimore Inspector General, but also restore the watchdog’s access to city databases and servers.

Her statements amounted to a full-fledged, if tentative, victory for IG Isabel Mercedes Cumming in her lawsuit against the city.

It further represented a public scolding of the Brandon Scott administration for, in the judge’s words, “keeping the inspector general from doing her important work” of rooting out fraud, abuse and corruption in city government free of interference from City Hall.

White alluded to criticism from administration figures, including from the mayor himself, that the IG has been “snooping on people’s mails.”

“The element of distrust by the city is not well received by the court,” she stated. “I am not going to play into any notion of distrust of the workings, independence and responsibility of the IG.”

In laying out the terms of her forthcoming order, White instructed city attorney Renita L. Collins, “You’re not going to withhold” records that were subpoenaed by Cumming and her team.

Disclosure of the records “is going to be prompt,” she added, and “it is not subject to policy decisions by the City Solicitor,” she warned, referring to Ebony Thompson, the city’s top lawyer who has led the efforts to restrict the IG’s information access.

• For full Brew coverage of Cumming-Scott administration dispute.

The judge’s remarks and pointed questions over the course of a three-hour hearing revealed her frustration with the Scott administration, which repeatedly tried to dismiss the lawsuit, then balked at her August 14 order to respond to some 60 subpoenas for records from the IG.

After its request to modify that order was denied by White on August 24, the city made an end run to the Maryland Appellate Court, asking the high court to pause the lawsuit so as to avoid “irreparable harm.” The city further demanded a jury trial.

On Monday, the Appellate Court threw out the city’s case. Today Judge White brought up the jury trial request this way:

“You can quickly disabuse yourself of that notion,” she told Collins.

Restore Server Access

Judge White also expressed alarm over the Scott administration’s sudden shutdown of the inspector general’s access to city servers last January 24.

She described the cutoff and issuance of an unusual Saturday press release condemning the IG for an “unapproved” and “unfettered” breach of attorney-client privilege as an attack on the watchdog agency. In the course of discussion, it revealed that the party whose privileged material was allegedly breached was Hilary Ruley, chief of legal opinions and advice.

Judge White brushed side Collins’ argument that there is nothing in the city charter that allows the IG “unfettered open access to city servers.”

After noting that “you like the word ‘unfettered,’” White sided with Cumming’s attorney, Anthony J. May, that the IG is expressly allowed to access the city server along with law enforcement, human resources and the city law department.

White said the server cutoff “brought the work of the IG to a crashing halt” and forced it to issue  the subpoenas to the law department that Collins now says is too burdensome for the law department to fulfill.

• COMMENTARY: The tactics employed by Mayor Scott in the Inspector General lawsuit have an air of desperation (9/15/26)

Much of today’s hearing focused over whether how the city will produce those records while adhering to attorney-client and work product privilege.

City attorney Collins argued that attorney-client privilege comprises a wide range of documents, saying that “anything that is in the server could be attorney-client information.”

May, representing Cumming and the IG Advisory Board, said he feared the city will continue to balk at producing the records and will undertake wholesale redactions under the name of attorney-client privilege.

“I fear we’ll be back here in several months,” he told the judge.

White said the city will be required in her order to produce a detailed “privilege log,” which will describe why a document is being withheld or redacted from the inspector general.

White asked two members of Cumming’s office to present a document to her that best allows the IG to regain access to city servers and related databases.

And she instructed Collins to familiarize Thompson with the judge wishes, saying, “It is the City Solicitor who needs to understand the order.”

Unredact SideStep Documents

As part of her pending order, White said she will require the city to produce the nearly 200 pages of documents it redacted last January in response to the IG’s investigation of the SideStep youth diversion program.

An OIG report issued in March said there were clear signs of fraudulent invoices and data breaches in the program. It was run by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE).

On Monday, Scott announced that MONSE will be folded into a new city department that promotes alternative public safety programs.