In another blow to Mayor Brandon Scott, the judge hearing Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming’s lawsuit seeking restoration of her city government records access today brushed aside the administration’s latest objections.

City lawyers last week challenged Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White’s August 14 order requiring the city to produce records that Cumming’s office had subpoenaed, saying its wording was unclear.

White rejected the city’s motion in a succinct order released this afternoon:

“The defendant’s motion to alter or amend judgment for clarification or in the alternative for reconsideration is denied.”

That leaves City Solicitor Ebony Thompson on the hook to follow the court’s direction that it “promptly” provide a response to more than 60 subpoenas issued by Cumming’s watchdog office since the Scott administration cut off its access to city computer servers last January.

White wrote that she made her decision after considering not just the city’s request for clarification, but the response to it filed by Cumming’s lawyers. Attached to the Cumming response was a summary of all outstanding subpoenas and their status.

Maintained under seal to retain confidentiality, the attachment is intended “to assist the court in understanding the scope of the information the OIG has requested and the city has not produced,” the lawyers said.

Cumming’s attorneys had been blunt in demanding that the city promptly release the requested documents.

“Because the [August 14] order is unambiguous, no clarification is required, and the city should produce all requested information without any redactions or withholdings,” they argued their motion on Friday.

Going a step further, the lawyers suggested another remedy for the city’s complaint about the difficulty of complying with White’s order:

“In the alternative, the Court should order the City to restore” the office’s pre-January 2026 access, the lawyers argued.

“Restoring that access would allow the OIG to identify and retrieve the responsive information directly rather than through the City Law Department,” the motion argued, thereby “reducing further delay and the need for continued judicial supervision of the City’s compliance.”

What Does “Entirety” Mean?

Today’s order by Judge White was the latest action in the on-going battle between Scott and Cumming over the OIG’s independence and legal powers to investigate fraud, waste and abuse in city government.

Cumming, along with two members of the OIG Advisory Board, filed the lawsuit last February.

They argue that the mayor’s Law Department has interfered with the OIG’s ability to investigate complaints of potential misconduct by city agencies or officials by denying access to databases and treating investigative subpoenas as public records requests subject to restrictions under the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA).

Judge White rejected the city’s position, affirming the authority granted to the inspector general through two charter amendments approved by voters.

“OIG is not controlled by and does not answer to any directive from the Mayor, City Council or City Solicitor,” the judge wrote. “Rather, OIG reports directly to Baltimore citizens.”

White’s order that the Law Department “promptly identify and produce a response to the backlog of subpoenas “is not susceptible to more than one meaning,” Cumming’s attorneys wrote on Friday.

“’The entirety of each response’ means the complete response, not a version withheld or redacted at the City’s discretion.

Thompson and her staff had also seized on the wording of White’s order that the city “promptly” produce the subpoenaed material, asking if the judge meant the same 15-day period specified in the previous paragraph of the order.

Cumming’s attorneys asked White to confirm that is what she meant. Today the judge did just that.

• See The Brew’s full coverage of the dispute between the Scott administration and the OIG over the powers of the watchdog office.