Tinubu Urges US Court To Reject Bid For Unredacted FBI, DEA Records

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has asked a United States federal court to dismiss a request by transparency activist Aaron Greenspan seeking further records from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) relating to him.

Tinubu’s lawyers, in an amended response filed before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on October 1, 2026, urged the court to uphold the redactions and withholding of information by the two agencies.

They argued that the withheld portions are protected by privacy provisions contained in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act.

The filing was made in Aaron Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al., Civil Action No. 23-1816 (BAH), a FOIA case in which Greenspan is seeking records concerning Tinubu and other individuals.

Greenspan had asked the court to compel the FBI, DEA and other U.S. government agencies to release additional documents obtained through his FOIA requests.

Tinubu’s legal team said the agencies had already released “thousands of documents,” although some portions were redacted. They added that the DEA had also supplied a Vaughn index identifying withheld material and the legal exemptions relied upon for withholding it.

The lawyers said Greenspan remained dissatisfied with the agencies’ response and had subsequently asked the court to grant him summary judgment.

According to the amended filing, Greenspan said he did not recall seeing the word “Tinubu” on a single page of the documents released by the government.

Responding to the claim, Tinubu’s lawyers maintained that the purpose of FOIA is to provide the public with information about the activities of government agencies and not to expose private information about individuals simply because such information is held by government bodies.

The lawyers relied on a 1989 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that disclosure of information concerning private individuals could reveal “little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.”

They further contended that the outstanding material falls within FOIA Exemption 7(C), which permits the withholding of certain law-enforcement records where disclosure could result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

The Privacy Act, they added, provides another legal basis for protecting or redacting personal information contained in the records.

“The DEA and FBI properly redacted or withheld exempt information from the responses to the requests,” the lawyers said.

The filing also sought to clarify the effect of an earlier ruling by the court concerning the agencies’ use of a Glomar response.

Under a Glomar response, a government agency may refuse to confirm or deny whether records exist where acknowledging the existence or non-existence of the records could itself disclose protected information.

In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA could not rely on Glomar responses in the circumstances of the case. She directed the agencies to search for and process records that were not exempt from disclosure.

Tinubu’s lawyers argued that the ruling did not require the government to disclose every piece of information contained in responsive investigative files.

According to them, the court had distinguished between Tinubu’s interest in keeping confidential whether he had been investigated and his separate privacy interest in the contents of any investigative records.

“The first interest was implicated in the Glomar analysis, but this Court did not reach the second issue,” the lawyers argued.

They maintained that the earlier ruling left open the possibility of protecting specific information in the files through individual withholdings and redactions.

The legal team also disputed Greenspan’s contention that information relating to a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding had already become part of the public domain.

They argued that the earlier forfeiture case did not reveal the details or outcome of any possible criminal investigation involving Tinubu.

“Other than by speculation or labels, Plaintiff does not point to an existing public record that contains details of a governmental criminal investigation or findings about Intervenor,” they said.

The lawyers further argued that the fact that some information about an individual may have previously been made public does not automatically remove that person’s privacy interest in other information that has never been disclosed.

They also maintained that Tinubu’s position as Nigeria’s President does not eliminate his privacy rights in records relating to events that occurred decades before he assumed office.

“Intervenor was not President of Nigeria in 1993,” the amended filing states.

According to the lawyers, the records being sought relate to events that occurred approximately between 1988 and 1991. They argued that Tinubu’s subsequent election as president should therefore not diminish the privacy protections applicable to the records.

The legal team also said Greenspan had failed to provide sufficient evidence of government wrongdoing that could outweigh the privacy interests protected under the law.

Tinubu’s lawyers consequently asked the court to reject Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and permit the FBI and DEA to retain their existing redactions and withholdings.

Greenspan is seeking an order requiring the FBI, DEA and Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys to release without redaction records relating to what he describes as a 1990s narcotics investigation in which Tinubu was identified as a subject.

The lawsuit also covers records connected to a 1993 U.S. civil forfeiture proceeding involving approximately $460,000 linked to Tinubu.

Tinubu has denied any wrongdoing.

Greenspan, an American researcher and IT expert who founded the legal transparency platform PlainSite, filed the FOIA requests as part of his lawsuit against the U.S. agencies.