Asserting authority over the city’s good government watchdog, Mayor Brandon Scott has asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit filed by Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming that demanded administration compliance with a subpoena for documents from his office’s troubled SideStep youth diversion program.

Under the City Charter, the inspector general’s subpoena power “can only be read to apply to entities outside of city government,” said the response filed in Baltimore Circuit Court late last night.

With this new filing, Scott’s lawyers pushed back against the pro bono lawsuit filed against his office and the City Council last month by private attorneys on behalf of Cumming and two members of the OIG Advisory Board, Gayle Guilford and James Godey.

“IG Cumming and the members of the Advisory Board are not independent legal actors; rather, they are subordinate components” of  the municipal entity that they are suing, said the 24-page response authorized by City Solicitor Ebony M. Thompson and signed by a lawyer on her staff, Renita L. Collins.

The city’s lawyers argued that, in addition to conflicting with the Charter, Cumming’s subpoena, if granted, would set city government up for other cumbersome legal battles.

“It would grind the gears of municipal service to a screeching halt, as it would require the city to invest most if not all of its time defending lawsuits filed by its own officials, units and boards,” the administration’s lawyers asserted.

But Cumming, in her complaint, had asserted she was not seeking new rights by filing suit to enforce the subpoena, but was attempting to affirm powers and information access she has had since 2018 that were abruptly revoked by a January 24 weekend press release by the mayor’s office.

• Baltimore IG Cumming says the Scott administration is blocking her investigations (1/27/26)

• An alarming and baseless attack on Baltimore’s inspector general (2/2/26)

• Former Baltimore youth diversion program paid fraudulent invoices and committed a data breach, IG finds (3/17/26)

That action followed a subpoena issued by Cumming’s office that demanded the financial records for a youth program run by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE). What she got back was 200 mostly redacted pages.

Cumming said the administration’s actions stripped her office of the independence she had been given by voters to carry out her mission to root out government waste, fraud and abuse.

In 2018, the OIG was separated from the Law Department, and in 2022 voters approved a ballot question that removed the appointment power for members of the IG Advisory Board from the mayor and other elected officials and also affirmed the IG’s subpoena powers.

“Unauthorized private counsel”

The city now asserts that, while the OIG can issue a subpoena as part of an investigation, it cannot enforce one.

“Although that investigative role includes the power to issue administrative subpoenas, enforcement of those subpoenas is not within the Inspector General’s powers,” the filing argues. “Rather, it is to be pursued, if at all, through the City Solicitor.”

Citing case law from a 2011 Montgomery County decision (and an interpretation of that ruling from an “advice letter” by a lawyer at the Maryland Attorney General’s Office subsequently repudiated by Attorney General Anthony Brown), the city argues that Cumming was subject to the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) that governs the release of documents to the public and the media.

The City Charter “could never be read to give the IG the power to override the MPIA and access all records of city government without regard to the MPIA’s protection of privileges and confidentiality.”

The city asserts that, while the OIG can issue a subpoena as part of an investigation, it cannot enforce one.

Cumming’s lawsuit described a “chilling effect” from the city solicitor’s interpretation of the MPIA law, arguing that it “has hamstrung the OIG’s ability to thoroughly conduct investigations and subpoena third-party entities.”

In a separate filing last night, the city also asked a judge to disqualify Cumming’s attorneys, H. Mark Stichel and Anthony J. May.

Described as “unsworn, unauthorized private counsel,” the two men are “not required to act in the best interest of the city or its citizens and have no ability to review and safeguard against conflicts of interest or protect the privacy of city employees,” the city’s motion declared.

In her complaint last month, Cumming noted that the city law department had repeatedly denied her request for authorization to retain independent counsel.

Collins, the deputy chief of litigation, made clear in the latest filing that such authorization wasn’t ever likely to happen.

“The OIG and those acting their official capacities are my clients,” Collins wrote, demanding that Cumming’s attorneys “take immediate steps” to withdraw as counsel.