City Solicitor Says His Termination Based On 'Unknowable' Information On Ex-Attorney

A day after he fired a contract attorney revealed to have ties to neo-Nazi groups, Baltimore City Solicitor George Nilson was terminated himself.

Derek Williams speaks with George Nilson:

A statement from Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says that effective next Wednesday, Aug. 24, Nilson "will no longer be" the solicitor.

"The Mayor thanks Mr. Nilson for his dedicated service to the City of Baltimore and wishes him well in his future endeavors," read the statement from Rawlings-Blake's office, which didn't say why he was leaving the office.

Nilson confirmed in an interview he was fired.

"I serve at the pleasure of the mayor," he said. "My termination was legal, but do I think it was just or deserved? No."

He didn't speak with the mayor about it, however. She was out of town and the task of terminating him fell to deputy chief of staff Kimberly Morton, he said.

"I asked for one," he said. "I was given none. I was asked to meet with her or communicate with her, and I was told that would not be possible. I made those requests several times in the last two days."

The move came a day after Nilson fired Glen Allen, an attorney who worked on contract beginning in February after retiring from DLA Piper. Also in his past, however, were years of affiliation with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, as well as both donations and a leadership post in a fringe political party. It was the Southern Poverty Law Center who brought evidence of these links to the fore this week.

Nilson said Allen expressed regret for not having mentioned his controversial associations. Nilson, though declined to say Allen was anything but capable and conscientious in his work for the solicitor's office, and said co-workers at both his office and DLA Piper would say the same, even today.

"To be with him, he is everything you would want a good lawyer to be," Nilson said.

He said Allen was a "unique opportunity" available at a bargain at the end of a long career. Allen had been paid roughly $42,000 on a contract valued up to more than $90,000 based on Allen's billing, Nilson said. In the private sector, Nilson said Allen commanded something in the $200,000 range. The one-year contract, Nilson said, would he have served it out, could have led to Allen taking a position not then available in the solicitor's office.

Nilson did say that he likely would not have hired Allen had he known in February what he knew Friday.

However, he said that when he has to dismiss anybody, even Allen, he likes to meet with them to discuss the reasoning in person. Nilson said he was miffed that he didn't get that courtesy from Rawlings-Blake, or for that matter, the opportunity to meet with her to discuss anything else in the last two days.

"I was disappointed the mayor would not either give me a reason or even communicate with me," Nilson said. "I'm not going to characterize that as disrespectful. I'm just going to say I was disappointed."

What would he have spoken to her about? For starters, he said he would have told Rawlings-Blake that what he and other law department staff involved in Allen's hiring could not have possibly known about Allen's past ties, and as such their actions were not punishable.

"If you did a google search on Glen Allen three days ago, you would have learned only that he's a lawyer in Baltimore City, who works now for the law department," Nilson said.

The $950 in donations, one of which was made as recently as June of 2015, did appear in an FEC database cited by SPLC. One 2014 gift was listed with the name of his then-employer. Furthermore, a post on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront and an American Eagle Party newsletter mentioned Allen in reference to two separate leadership posts, according to the SPLC report. Furthermore, Allen identified himself in a party video posted to YouTube in which he talks about vaccines, though he was not named in the title or description of that video.

However, in his interview, Nilson went on to say it would be unprofessional and inappropriate for him to ask any question of any applicant about political or religious involvement. The only way he would have known, he claimed, is if Allen were to have told him in February.

"Even if I asked them if they were Republicans, that would be wholly inappropriate," Nilson said. "If I were interviewing somebody next week to be an assistant solicitor, I wouldn't even dream of asking them if they have any Nazi organization history in their past, nor if I would ask them if they're Mormons, nor would I ask them if they were libertarians, nor would I ask them if they were members of Black Lives Matter."

CORRECTION: A correction was made to a previous version of this article. The article was originally published with an incorrect quote, stating that George Nilson said "I made those requests several times in the last two years." That has been corrected now to say the correct quote "I made those requests several times in the last two days," as can be heard in the audio attached to this article. We apologize for any confusion.