Officials with Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration took the unusual step of severing Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming’s access to city legal documents Saturday.

The move, announced in a news release as city officials were otherwise occupied with snow preparations, came after city attorneys discovered a similarly unusual situation: A member of Cumming’s team “had gained unapproved and unfettered access” to files produced by a city Law Department attorney.

Those files, city officials said, were protected by attorney-client and work product privileges.

As inspector general, Cumming investigates waste, fraud and abuse in city government. The role comes with the power to subpoena documents from city offices.

City officials cited the Maryland Attorneys’ Rules of Professional Conduct, which require lawyers to keep materials confidential.

“To comply with these rules, [the Baltimore City Office of Information & Technology] was directed to remove any accounts with unauthorized access to Law Department files and restore the confidentiality to ensure the Law Department is able to maintain its legal and ethical responsibilities,” the administration said in the news release.

In the announcement, city attorneys said the decision to terminate Cumming’s access to the documents would “not impede the lawful work” of the inspector general.

Cumming was not available for comment.

In the days ahead of the announcement, Cumming posted several times on social media about the importance of access to city records for her office.

“Access to city records is fundamental to the job of the @OIG_Baltimore of investigating waste, fraud and abuse,” she wrote Friday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The posts followed a dispute over records supplied to Cumming by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which spearheads Scott’s holistic crime-fighting program. The agency produced records that were the subject of a subpoena, but portions were redacted by the Law Department.

Twice, Cumming posted online a position paper that discusses how redactions impede her work. She said her office’s advisory board, which oversees her and is largely appointed by various City Hall officials, agreed to make the paper public.

“Limitations of this expressly authorized power — such as imposed by redactions required under the relevant Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) provisions — would be contrary to the statutory framework outlining the OIG’s powers and duties to the City and its electorate,” the paper reads.

A tweet from Cumming states it more plainly: “Redactions & denial of city records to the OIG denies the public’s independent fraud fighter their ability to do their job.”

Cumming has at times found herself at odds with members of the Scott administration and past mayors. Her multipart investigation of workplace conditions in the Department of Public Works, coupled with the deaths of several department employees, sparked improvements to workspaces.

Cumming’s most recent investigations took aim at the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services and the quasi-governmental Baltimore Children and Youth Fund.

Baltimore leaders have taken steps in recent years to make Cumming’s position more independent.

Historically, inspectors general worked at the will of the city’s mayor and were susceptible to dismissal if their investigations were too critical. In 2018, voters approved a ballot measure creating the advisory board and making her office independent. In 2022, voters OK’d a second measure to change the makeup of the board to remove city officeholders.

Councilman Ryan Dorsey, who authored and sponsored the 2018 legislation that placed the inspector general question on the ballot, said he was concerned to hear Cumming’s office had unfettered access to legal documents, noting he takes the purpose of her office seriously.

“As someone who once held this inspector general in high regard, it is disappointing that she has yet again gone down a path of overstepping the bounds of her role and potentially put the city at legal risk,” Dorsey said. “It’s one thing to be independent but another not to respect established boundaries.”