BALTIMORE, Md. — The Mayor’s Office is asking for an emergency stay of a judge’s order that sides with Baltimore's Office of the Inspector General after a months-long legal fight over access to internal records.
On Monday, Judge Pamela White ordered the Mayor’s Office and City Council to turn over all documents responsive to subpoenas issued by the OIG in 2025 and 2026 within 45 days and to restore permissions to access City systems within two days.
The court found that the city "obstructed" the OIG's "critical role to root out governmental fraud, finance waste, and abuse."
RELATED: Baltimore Inspector General sues Mayor for allegedly shielding subpoenaed MONSE records
During a hearing in July, Plaintiff’s attorneys revealed that the office was waiting on 49 unanswered subpoenas, making Inspector General Isabel Cumming’s job “impossible.”
WATCH: Baltimore City Inspector General's records access fight goes unresolved as judge considers motion to dismiss
City attorneys claimed they had been working on them on a rolling basis, though White notes none of the more than a dozen subpoenas issued in 2026 had yet to be fulfilled.
Immediately following the order, the city filed an emergency appeal arguing that it “would cause irreparable harm” and requested an expedited decision by the end of the day Tuesday.
The city has previously argued that records supplied to the OIG must follow the Maryland Public Information Act. Redacted records supplied to the watchdog office, it claimed, included information subject to attorney-client privilege.
The judge noted that the "[d]efendant's palpable distrust of OIG and arguments against 'unfettered access', to justify cutting off OIG's long-term access to City systems, are unsupported by any factual attestation."
In August, Judge White denied the city’s efforts to outright dismiss the lawsuit.
Voters made the OIG Office fully independent by charter amendment in 2018.
Facebook 
TikTok 
YouTube
Instagram
Threads
X
