BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A former federal inspector general says a Baltimore judge’s ruling in the escalating legal battle between City Hall and its own watchdog amounts to a major victory for Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming while raising serious questions about the actions of the Baltimore City Law Department and City Solicitor Ebony Thompson.
Friday, Judge Pamela White denied Mayor Brandon Scott and the City Council’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed by Cumming and her Office of Inspector General Advisory Board. The lawsuit centers on the independence of the OIG, its access to city records, and the city’s handling of subpoenas.
“This was as good a decision as the inspector general could have possibly hoped for,” Mark Lee Greenblatt, the former inspector general for the U.S. Department of the Interior, told FOX45. “And on the flip side, as bad a decision as the mayor had feared.”
But Greenblatt says one part of White’s 17-page ruling should not be overlooked: her findings concerning the City Solicitor and the Law Department.
“The opinion, this is by Senior Judge Pamela White, went out of its way to identify serious problems with the city solicitor and what the judge concluded was a conflict of interest, one of several conflicts of interest by the city solicitor in this case,” Greenblatt said.
The legal saga centers on how the Law Department handled information and subpoenas sought by Cumming’s office during its investigations.
According to White’s ruling, OIG subpoenas sent to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, MONSE, were heavily redacted by the Law Department based on concerns involving the Maryland Public Information Act, MPIA, and attorney-client privilege.
White wrote that the Law Department’s actions “materially limit[ed] OIG’s ability to advance its investigatory decisions.”
The judge then identified what she described as a direct conflict: the City Solicitor would not secure independent counsel for the OIG to enforce its subpoenas while the Law Department was simultaneously restricting or resisting MONSE’s responses to those subpoenas.
Such refusal to honor OIG’s independent subpoena authority is the first of several conflicts of interest of the City Solicitor upon determining to represent both the Mayor and OIG in their dispute, White wrote.
White also addressed the professional responsibilities of government attorneys representing different units with competing interests.
“The City Solicitor was obliged to cease representation of OIG when no longer able to provide competent, diligent and loyal representation to each unit as to the response and enforcement of the MONSE subpoenas,” White wrote.
Greenblatt called those findings highly significant.
“They have gotten themselves in a very bad situation here where the judge is not only rejecting their arguments on the merits but is really coming to hard conclusions about the city solicitor, her role in this case and in the handling of the investigation, the document requests and the subpoenas,” Greenblatt said.
Greenblatt said the situation also raises a question the ruling itself cannot answer.
“Is the mayor driving the law department to come up with bad arguments, or is the law department and city solicitor giving him bad legal advice?” Greenblatt said. “We just don’t know.”
Before joining Baltimore government, Thompson worked at Venable, LLP. She later joined the City Law Department under then-City Solicitor Jim Shea, who previously served as Venable’s chairman.
Another former Venable attorney, Karl Racine, is now involved in the MONSE controversy as well.
Mayor Scott tapped Racine, the former attorney general for Washington, D.C. and consent decree monitor in Cleveland, to work on an outside review of MONSE and the SideStep youth diversion program. Racine also once served as a managing partner at Venable.
SideStep was a pilot program run through MONSE and has been central to the document debate with the OIG and has been the focus of IG investigations.
The professional connections themselves are not identified by White as the basis for the conflicts she found in her ruling involving the Law Department. White’s analysis instead focuses on the Law Department’s simultaneous roles involving the Mayor, OIG, subpoena responses and the OIG’s request for independent legal representation.
White’s ruling also dealt a significant blow to the city’s legal argument on MPIA. City Hall has maintained that requests from the OIG were governed by the MPIA and restrictions. However, White rejected that argument.
“The jurisdiction of the OIG to perform its work, including the issuance and enforcement of its subpoenas, is not in conflict with or restricted by the MPIA,” White wrote.
The City’s arguments subjecting OIG subpoenas and investigatory requests to MPIA exclusions are inapt, White continued.
White drew a distinction between a member of the public requesting government records and an independent inspector general using investigative authority granted by the Baltimore City Charter.
“OIG investigatory functions and subpoenas are not mere requests for public information from other government units or employees,” White wrote.
The judge emphasized that Baltimore voters created an independent OIG with authority to investigate fraud, financial waste and abuse in city government and gave the Inspector General explicit authority to issue and enforce subpoenas.
Greenblatt believes that portion of White’s ruling could have consequences beyond Baltimore.
“This MPIA issue is very, very significant, not just in this case, but for all Maryland taxpayers, because this is the basis that could be used to thwart other inspectors general throughout the state of Maryland,” Greenblatt said.
He pointed to inspector general offices in jurisdictions including Montgomery, Howard and Anne Arundel counties as examples of watchdogs that could be affected by the broader legal question.
“For the other IGs in Maryland and for the taxpayers in Maryland, I would be very heartened by this ruling,” Greenblatt said.
While White denied the city’s motion to dismiss the case, she also reserved ruling on the OIG’s pending motion for summary judgment.
The judge ordered the city to file a response within 15 days of the filing of the order. Judge White also ordered the city to “promptly” identify and produce the entirety of its responses to subpoenas specified in the amended complaint, as well as each subpoena issued by the OIG to any city agency or government unit since April 10.
Greenblatt believes White’s language in the motion-to-dismiss ruling provides a strong indication of how she views the underlying legal dispute, although the summary judgment motion has not yet been decided.
“She’s pretty much tipped her hand in terms of what she’s seeing and feeling on this,” Greenblatt said.
Greenblatt said the city should now reconsider its approach.
“The mayor and the city solicitor have some real thinking to do about how to move forward and to not make the situation worse for themselves,” he said.
Follow Political Reporter Mikenzie Frost on X and Facebook. Send tips to mbfrost@sbgtv.com.
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