CLEVELAND — A war of words has broken out at Cleveland City Hall between members of Mayor Justin Bibb's staff and City Council over accusations brought up in a letter from Council President Blaine Griffin that administration members demanded that a council employee be fired for allegedly downloading confidential city files.

According to Griffin, on Sept. 18, Bibb administration representatives "accused City Council employee Steve Rys of downloading confidential files from GovQA, the City’s public records request database, and gave us an ultimatum: fire Steve immediately or they will go public with their accusation."

Griffin told councilmembers that the mayor's representatives also threatened to explore prosecuting Rys in federal court, "even though they admitted such an action was like

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