Baltimore’s ongoing dispute over the inspector general’s access to city records has escalated, with Inspector General Isabel Cumming asking a judge to punish the city for allegedly failing to comply with a court order.
Cumming wants Judge Pamela White to find the city in civil contempt and impose a fine for each day the administration fails to restore access to the records and computer systems used by her office.
The request comes after White previously ordered the city to restore access within two days and comply with subpoenas issued by the Office of the Inspector General.
Mayor Brandon Scott has disputed Cumming’s account and said his administration had already taken steps to address the issue.
“We will always follow the law,” Scott said on social media.
“But let’s be clear about what’s happening here,” he added. “This is showmanship, not integrity.”
Scott said Baltimore City Information Technology reached out to the OIG early Monday to help restore the affected accounts and systems.
Emails cited by The Baltimore Banner showed that BCIT asked an OIG employee to complete a form as part of the process.
According to Scott, the contempt petition was filed at about 1:30pm Monday, despite discussions between the two offices over restoring access. He said the OIG had indicated that it needed another day to complete some of the work.
An OIG employee was quoted by The Banner as saying, “I will probably need to work with the team tomorrow to iron out some of the password resets.”
The employee added, “I will test as soon as I am able with the accounts I have regained access to with the understanding that they will not be fully restored until later this evening.”
Cumming’s lawyers gave the court a different version of events, saying they had written to the city on Sunday and requested that the records be provided by 1pm Monday.
Her filing described the city’s alleged failure to comply with the order as “voluntary and intentional.”
The legal battle intensified after Baltimore made another attempt to stop Cumming from obtaining access to the records. The city filed an emergency appeal on Friday, arguing that White’s order conflicted with established Maryland law.
The city’s attorney warned that complying with the ruling could cause “irreparable harm and immense financial burden to the city by tomorrow.”
The Maryland Appellate Court rejected the request later that day, saying the city had not established that it would suffer irreparable harm.
The appellate court also made clear that White’s ruling did not require Baltimore to hand over attorney-client privileged communications or work product produced during the litigation.
Scott has insisted that the administration is not attempting to conceal information from Cumming’s office.
“I’m not hiding anything,” he said. “I’m fighting for Baltimoreans to have a system that works. There’s a system that exists, like the one that exists in Howard County and in Baltimore County.”
“This is just a legal process, and when this legal process is done, we will follow the law that is given to us through that legal process, period,” he added.
White’s earlier ruling came after Cumming challenged the city’s decision to restrict her office’s access to databases, emails and other information needed for investigations.
The judge said the restrictions had interfered with the inspector general’s responsibilities under Baltimore’s city charter.
“When the city abruptly and adversely changed OIG’s operating circumstances, consequently interfering with Plaintiffs’ performance of Charter responsibilities, Plaintiffs identified and established the existence of an actual and justiciable controversy: subpoenas are outstanding, standard investigative practices cut off, access to databases shut down,” White wrote.
She further stated, “OIG investigations are restricted, severely limited without direct access to employee emails and data. Plaintiffs’ critical role to root out governmental fraud, finance waste, and abuse is obstructed by Defendant’s interference with OIG’s investigatory performance.”
White also expressed dissatisfaction with the city’s explanations during the proceedings, saying she was “deeply disappointed” by them.
At one point, she told city attorney Renita Collins that she was “making no sense” with some of her arguments and said she was “stunned” by the administration’s distrust of the inspector general.
The judge maintained that Cumming’s office should be able to obtain information required for investigations without disclosing the targets of those investigations.
White also indicated that she would order the release of records connected to the Sidestep youth programme, which is overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement.
Scott appealed the ruling, and the dispute moved to the state appellate court.
On Wednesday, the appellate court temporarily paused White’s order, directing that another motion first be addressed by the lower court before the wider appeal proceeds.
The appellate court had previously rejected an appeal from Scott’s administration on September 14.
