Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White this afternoon ordered the Brandon Scott administration to restore within two business days all permissions allowing the Office of Inspector General to access city servers and databases that were cut off by the mayor and his law department last January.

The judge further ordered the City Solicitor’s office to start supplying within five days “all documents responsive to each subpoena issued in 2025 and 2026” that had been bottled up by the administration.

In so doing, Judge White has handed IG Isabel Mercedes Cumming and two members of her advisory board a near complete victory in their effort to regain access to city records that the Scott administration deemed to be limited by the Maryland Public Information Act and by what the mayor has denounced as Cumming’s “unfettered access” to confidential employee emails.

The written order, which echoes the judge’s scathing words directed to city lawyers at a court hearing last Wednesday, comes days after Mayor Scott indicated that, while “we will always follow the law,” he will fight any judicial order that does not go his way.

His lawyers have repeatedly demanded that the Cumming lawsuit be dismissed, which the judge has repeatedly denied, and last week the city lost its appeal before the Maryland Appellate Court to stay, or freeze, the lawsuit.

Today Judge White issued an order (see below) that specifically enjoins the city from:

• Denying the corruption and fraud watchdog’s requests for information “by the misapplication of the Maryland Public Information Act or attorney-client privilege”;

• Taking “any actions that would impede, inhibit or restrict” the IG’s investigatory responsibilities;

• “Revoking or restricting” the IG’s access to Baltimore City’s M365 Cloud Administrator Account, Enterprise Domain Administrator account, Enterprise Server Administrator account, Enterprise Workstation Administrator account and Splunk data platform.

The judge further told the city law department to complete its production of IG-subpoenaed records “no later than 45 days from the date of this order.”

The judge says the law department also must produce a “privilege log” that identifies any document that it asserts should be withheld as attorney-client confidential communication or a work product that contains “mental impressions, conclusions, opinions or legal theories of an attorney or othet representative concerning the anticipated litigation.”

Legal Scolding

In an accompanying 11-page opinion issued today, Judge White gave City Solicitor Ebony Thompson and her staff a tongue-lashing, saying that the complaint by Cumming and the IG board “details, without contradiction, a developing pattern by the City to delay, diffuse and deny OIG subpoenas to City offices and employees.”

The judge continued her denunciation of the city’s position, finding that:

“The Law Department’s actions served, at least, to materially limit OIG’s ability to advance its investigatory decisions. A direct conflict appeared as the Solicitor would not act to engage independent counsel for OIG to enforce its subpoenas while contemporaneously acting to restrict or avoid MONSE’s responses to those subpoenas.”

The Scott administration’s accusation that the IG gained “unfettered access” to privileged records is unsupported by facts, Judge White rules.

The opinion further concluded that the city’s repeated arguments of “unfettered access” to privileged records by the inspector general – used to justify blocking her access to city records systems – “are unsupported by any factual attestation of the existence of a privilege or consequential breach upon some improvident disclosure by OIG.”

“Defendant,” she concluded, “does not attempt to prove that any such privilege exists, let alone warrants foreclosing investigatory data searches or denying subpoenas” to the watchdog agency.

• FOR FULL BREW COVERAGE OF THE DISPUTE.

White said that the Scott administration’s action since January “directly contradicts” the independent authority to investigate waste, fraud and abuse given to the inspector general by the City Charter, approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 and 2022.

She noted with approval an affidavit submitted by former City Solicitor Andre Davis, who spoke of the close but independent coordination between his office and Cumming during his tenure between 2017 and 2020, and the importance of the IG’s direct access to city records without interference by the mayor’s office or a mayoral-appointed city solicitor.

Full Text of Judge White’s Order:

Upon consideration of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (June 18, 2026), opposed by Defendant, with Maryland Rules 2-501 and 15-501 et seq., for reasons stated by Opinion on Summary Judgment and otherwise appearing in the Record, it is on this 21st day of
September 2026, hereby

ORDERED that the Motion for Summary Judgment by Plaintiffs Inspector General Isabel Cumming, Advisory Board Chair Gayle Guilford, and Advisory Board Secretary James Godey (“OIG”) is GRANTED in substantial part and, therefore, relief shall be Ordered and Judgment Declared against Defendant Mayor and City Council of Baltimore pursuant to the Maryland Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. I §§ 3-401 et seq.

It is ORDERED AND JUDGMENT DECLARED that the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General has the legal authority to issue and enforce subpoenas without restrictions, including subpoenas to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City; and

ORDERED AND JUDGMENT DECLARED that all subpoenas, past, present, and future, issued by the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General shall be given the full force and effect of any subpoena issued under local, state, and federal law and without limitation or
restricted response under the Maryland Public Information Act; and

ORDERED AND JUDGMENT DECLARED that the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City must fully comply and respond to all current and any future subpoenas issued by the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General without restricting or withholding unspecified
or inapplicable attorney-client communications or work product documents.

It is further ORDERED that Defendant Mayor and City Council are ENJOINED from denying subpoenas or withholding complete responses to subpoenas by the Inspector General to City offices and employees; and

ORDERED that Defendant Mayor and City Council are ENJOINED from denying Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General investigatory requests to City offices and employees by the misapplication of the Maryland Public Information Act or attorney-client
privilege; and

ORDERED that Defendant Mayor and City Council are ENJOINED from taking any actions that would impede, inhibit, or restrict the Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General from investigatory responsibilities of the office; and

ORDERED that Defendant Mayor and City Council are ENJOINED from revoking or restricting Office of Inspector General permissions and access to the City resources extant through 2025; and

ORDERED that Defendant Mayor and City Council shall promptly produce withheld documents and reinstate access to records as follows:

1. Beginning no later than 5 days from the date of this Order and completing no later than 45 days from the date of this Order, Defendant City shall produce, without redaction or limitation, all documents responsive to each subpoena issued in 2025 and 2026 by theInspector General pursuant to Section 4(c) and (d) of Charter Article X.

(a) Defendant City may accompany each production with a Privilege Log comprehensively identifying each and any document produced or withheld that is asserted to be (i) an attorney-client confidential communication or (ii) a ‘work product’ document or electronically stored information prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for the City official, employee, board member or contractor, and/or containing mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representative concerning the anticipated litigation.

2. Within 2 business days of the date of this Order, Defendant City shall completely restore all permissions to access City systems that were held by Assistant Inspector General of IT Operations Bryan Bartsch as of January 22, 2026, including:

(a) Defendant’s M365 Cloud Administrator account that allows utilization of Defendant’s (i) M365 ediscovery tool (Purview); (ii) Azure activity directory to view users, devices, and activity logs; (iii) Sharepoint access; (iv) OneDrive access; and (v) Exchange access to place mailboxes on litigation hold and review mailbox permissions;

(b) Enterprise Domain Administrator account, which allows for the review of domain permissions and delegated permissions within the Defendant’s legacy directory services.

(c) Enterprise Server Administrator account to enable administration of servers across the Defendant’s Enterprise IT infrastructure as it relates to investigations;

(d) Enterprise workstation Administrator account to enable administration of workstations across Defendant’s enterprise as it relates to investigations; and

(e) Access to Defendant’s Enterprise log server (Splunk) with the permissions provided to “ESS Analyst group” to enable review logs ingested by the server as it relates to investigations.

– Senior Circuit Court Judge Pamela J. White