10-05-2025
Appeals court rules identity of political donors can be hidden from public view
Former Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby walks out of the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt with her daughters after her sentencing in May 2024. (Photo by Bryan Sears/Maryland Matters)
A three-judge panel of the Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that individual donations to a political fund are private financial information and must be protected from public identification.
The May 2 opinion, by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff, said that public interest in government transparency and uncovering corruption do not outweigh plain language of the Maryland Public Information Act, which prohibits the disclosure of an individual's financial activity, no matter how small.
The ruling came in response to separate lawsuits by the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Brew, which had filed Maryland Public Information Act requests with the city for records relating to a legal defense fund set up in 2021 by Council President Nick Mosby for himself and his then-wife, Marilyn, who was Baltimore City State's Attorney at the time.
The city Ethics Board ruled in May 2022 that Nick Mosby had violated ethics law by soliciting and accepting monies from donors and by failing to disclose his interest in 'the Mosby Trust,' the fund set up to collect donations. (A circuit court later found that Mosby had not accepted gifts from donors, but upheld the finding that he solicited the donations and failed to disclose his interest in the fund.)
Along with its ruling, the board included a spreadsheet that listed the amount, date and method of payment for each donation to the Mosby Trust, but it redacted names, addresses and email addresses of the donors. The board said was required to redact the names under the PIA, which prohibits release of records that include information about the 'finances of an individual, including assets, income, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, financial history or activities, or creditworthiness.'
The Sun and the Brew appealed to the Maryland Public Information Act Compliance Board, arguing that donations to a legal defense fund do not reveal personal financial information about that donor and are not subject to protection under the PIA exception on releasing personal information.
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The compliance board agreed with the news outlets, ruling in September 2023 that merely listing a donation to a campaign does not reveal the 'assets, income, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, financial history or activities, or creditworthiness.' To the extent that such a listing might be an intrusion on someone's personal privacy, 'on balance it does not seem like an unwarranted one given the public's interest in election integrity and detecting political corruption.'
'Campaign finance activity, for example, is not ordinarily protected financial information. We think that donations like these—donations that are made to support elected officials in their political capacities—are much more akin to that sort of financial activity, which is commonly accepted as disclosable,' the board's ruling said.
But that finding was overturned in March 2024 by a circuit court, which said the long list of things covered by the exemption clearly meant that 'financial information' should be construed broadly. Even though 'single donations, some in small amounts, 'show little about any person's overall financial position,'' it still qualifies as financial information and must be withheld from the public.
In their appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals, the news organizations argued that a 'single payment also does not constitute a 'financial history or activities,' which denotes a [series] of transactions over time from which one might glean some qualitative information about the payer's assets, income, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, or creditworthiness.' And donors cannot have expected that their 'donations to elected officials in their political capacities' are private, any more than donations to political campaign are private.
The Board of Ethics argued that the PIA law does not concern itself with where a donation is directed, and to argue that 'a donation is not financial activity is patently absurd.' The state-held record 'shows that a person had a certain amount of money (an asset) and that they transferred that money to another person or entity,' which is 'plainly information about these individuals' financial activity' — and, as such, must be withheld from the public.
The appeals court agreed with the Ethics Board, and upheld the circuit court ruling.
'Here, the language of the statues is clear and unambiguous,' Graeff wrote in the 23-page opinion. 'We conclude that the names and addresses of donors to a legal defense fund do fall in the same category as the items listed in the statute' that are prohibited from disclosure.
While the news organizations may argue that the public interest demands that donors to political interests should be revealed, Graeff said that's not what the law says, and changing the law is the job of the legislature, not the courts.
An attempt to reach editors at the Brew and the Sun were unsuccessful.
Nick Mosby lost his bid for re-election to as council president in 2024. Gov. Wes Moore (D) appointed him this year to a seat on the Maryland State Lottery and Gaming Control Commission.
Marilyn Mosby was under indictment when she ran for reelection in 2022, for lying on an application to improperly withdraw funds from her city pension account. She lost her reelection bid that year and was later convicted year of two counts of perjury and one count of mortgage fraud in connection with financial maneuvers related to the purchase of a home in Florida.
She was sentenced last May in federal district court to serve three years supervised release, one year of which was to be served under home confinement. She vowed an appeal at the time of her sentencing.
