AG Brown says Baltimore City wrongly interpreted letter used to block IG access to records

MARYLAND (WBFF) — Attorney General Anthony Brown made his position crystal clear.

“This is not an opinion of the attorney general. This is an advice letter,” Brown insisted during an interview on Wednesday afternoon.

He was referring to a letter written by Assistant Attorney General Shaunee L. Harrison, which Baltimore City officials used to prohibit the City’s Inspector General access to critical city records.

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Inspector General Isabel Cumming said she was given blacked-out records and blocked access while investigating finances at the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE), raising new questions about whether City Hall is improperly limiting oversight of city government.

The mayor’s office had called the letter an “official opinion” from the Attorney General. The letter explained why Maryland’s Public Information Act bars certain records from being shared.

“It is a boilerplate analysis of the Maryland Public Information Act. It is not an application of law to fact,” Brown said.

“This is not advice about the extent to which the Baltimore City inspector general can do their work,” he added.

“The mayor read the letter the way he wanted to read it and that is to keep the information from the inspector general,” taxpayer advocate David Williams told FOX45 News.

Brown said he agrees with the facts of the advice letter, but does not have enough information to form an official opinion.

“There are a lot of matters that demand my attention and until this one is properly before me I just haven’t given it any consideration,” Brown said.

On Tuesday night, the board which oversees the inspector general’s office, cleared Cumming to obtain an attorney and fight for access to the records.

“At the very core of this issue is what is the mayor hiding? What is happening inside MONSE and SideStep that the mayor doesn’t want anyone to know about? There must [be] some deep dark secrets, massive waste of money, that the mayor and people at MONSE don’t want taxpayers to know about,” Williams said.