Baltimore Mayor Scott's administration cut off Inspector General's IT access; Cumming said it jeopardized whistleblower confidentiality

On Saturday, January 24, 2026, the City of Baltimore announced that its Office of Information & Technology (BCIT), acting under Mayor Brandon Scott's administration, had removed Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming's office from administrative access to city IT systems. The city's own press release said a Law Department permissions audit had found an account tied to the Inspector General's office had "unapproved and unfettered access" to a city lawyer's attorney-client-privileged files, and that BCIT had been directed to remove the access to comply with confidentiality rules. Cumming disputed that framing, telling reporters the change went far beyond the privileged files at issue and stripped her office's administrator of the ability to monitor who inside city government accesses sensitive systems generally -- including whistleblower complaints and ethics-investigation files. "The gatekeeper lost his access on a snowy night without any notice," she said, calling the move "unprecedented."

Separately, Cumming's office received hundreds of pages of heavily redacted records from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) in response to a subpoena issued as part of a fraud and waste investigation; some redactions obscured the source and destination of specific Cash App payments while leaving only dollar amounts visible. Cumming, who holds subpoena power under the city charter, said the city treated her office like an ordinary public- records requester rather than a statutorily empowered investigator, and declined to provide her office independent legal counsel to contest the redactions. Mayor Scott's director of communications, Tracy King, said Cumming's office was "choosing to conflate two independent issues" and called characterizations of the access impact "misleading."

The access restriction and the MONSE redactions removed a legislatively created watchdog office's practical ability to do the oversight work the city charter assigns it -- most directly, Cumming said she could no longer assure whistleblowers their identities would stay confidential because her office could no longer monitor who accessed the systems holding those complaints.

Updates

2026-02-24 — Cumming sued Mayor Scott seeking a records-access order [4]

City Solicitor Ebony Thompson had sent Mayor Scott and the City Administrator a letter on February 6, 2026 directing further changes to the Inspector General's direct records access. On February 24, 2026, Cumming sued Mayor Scott and the city in Baltimore Circuit Court, seeking a court order enforcing her subpoena for MONSE financial and payroll records and affirming her office's investigative authority under the city charter; her attorneys said the number of unanswered OIG subpoenas had grown from 19 in January to 49 by July.

2026-08-14 — Judge denied city's motion to dismiss, ordered subpoena compliance [5]

Circuit Court Judge Pamela White denied the city's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, ruled that the Law Department's restrictions on the Inspector General's records access conflicted with two voter-approved City Charter amendments establishing the office's independence, and ordered the city to respond to the outstanding subpoenas. The underlying litigation remains ongoing.

2026-08-20 — City asked judge to clarify subpoena-compliance order [6][7]

Baltimore City asked Judge Pamela White to clarify her August 14 order compelling the city to produce responses to outstanding OIG subpoenas, disputing whether "promptly" meant immediate production or the 15-day deadline applied to other filings, and what "entirety" required for each response. At least 49 OIG subpoenas remained outstanding. Taxpayer advocate David Williams called the filing a delay tactic; the city said it needed clarification of the order's terms.