*Pleads Concern His Life As Private Individual, Student
*DEA Insists Releasing Portions Could Expose Confidential Sources, Sensitive Law-Enforcement Techniques
COUNSEL to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have pleaded with a United States (US) federal court in Washington to disallow Aaron Greenspan’s moves for additional records about him, saying the documents involves Tinubu’s private life before he went into politics and is protected by privacy laws.
In a filing dated August 28, in Greenspan v. Executive Office for US Attorneys, Tinubu’s counsel implored the court not to allow Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and leave in place the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) redactions and withholdings.
Tinubu intervened in the lawsuit to protect his interests in records held by the agencies, with his lawyers argue that Greenspan’s requests seek information about Tinubu contained in government files, including law-enforcement records, rather than material that would show how the agencies performed their duties.
The lawyers said disclosure could invade the privacy of people named in those files without advancing a public interest recognised under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), adding that the events at issue predate Tinubu’s presidency and that he was a private citizen at the time.
They argued: “Regardless, Intervenor should retain his full privacy interests because he was not a public official in 1993,” the brief states, adding that “Plaintiff’s FOIA requests seek three decades old records pertaining to events that occurred when Intervenor was a student.”
The lawyers contended that Tinubu’s later election to public office did not erase the privacy protections that apply to records about his earlier private life, citing a D.C. Circuit precedent, which says that public officials do not “forfeit their personal privacy for FOIA purposes” because of their positions.
The filing also quotes a 2024 district court ruling involving background-check records, arguing that a requester “does not explain how an individual’s background investigation files reflect what the government agencies (he) led were ‘up to.”
The lawyers rely mainly on FOIA Exemption 7(C), which permits agencies to withhold certain law-enforcement information when disclosure could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, as well as the Privacy Act as an independent basis for protecting information about individuals.
The filing disputes Greenspan’s reliance on the public-domain doctrine, the principle that information already officially disclosed may no longer be withheld on the same basis.
The lawyers argue that the 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding involving funds held in accounts bearing his name, and an accompanying affidavit by Special Agent, Kevin Moss, revealled only the existence of a forfeiture action, and that those documents did not disclose “the details of a possible criminal investigation (or its results) involving Intervenor.”
Citing the US Supreme Court’s decision in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the lawyers argue that a person may retain a privacy interest in undisclosed information in government files even when some related details have previously become public, and challenge Greenspan’s claim that the records would serve a public interest under FOIA.
The filing argues that “the Nigerian public’s general interest” in Tinubu’s background and any interest in “influencing politics in a foreign nation” are not the kind of interests the law is designed to advance.
FOIA’s purpose, they say, is to shed light on the US Government’s activities, not to satisfy “general public curiosity” about an individual.
The case concerns Greenspan’s efforts to obtain records connected to federal investigations into a Chicago-area heroin-trafficking operation in the early 1990s.
But the lawyers characterise the requests as seeking information about a private individual, rather than evidence of government misconduct, and reject suggestions that the requests are justified by a suspected secret prosecution or cover-up, arguing that claims of government wrongdoing require evidence.
A 2025 ruling in the same case distinguished between an agency confirming whether it held records and disclosing the contents of investigative files.
The court allowed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to refuse to confirm or deny whether it had responsive records, but directed the FBI and DEA to search for and process non-exempt material.
The ruling did not determine whether the historical allegations involving Tinubu were true.
The current dispute is over which records the agencies must release and which may be withheld under privacy and law-enforcement protections.
Tinubu’s filing only presents his lawyers’ arguments; it is not a final ruling by the court.
Meanwhile, DEA has told the court that releasing portions of investigative records connected to a criminal investigation involving Tinubu could expose confidential sources and reveal sensitive law-enforcement techniques.
The position was contained in a September 23, filing before the US District Court for the District of Columbia (DC) in the FOIA suit.
In the latest filing, the government defended the DEA’s decision to withhold portions of the records under several FOIA exemptions, relying on a declaration submitted by the agency and a Vaughn Index detailing the basis for the withheld information. The government said the DEA records include investigative documents, such as DEA-6 Reports, DEA-292 Reports and DEA-210 Reports, arguing that because the documents are similar types of investigative records, similar explanations and FOIA exemptions would naturally apply to multiple entries in the Vaughn Index.
The filing also addressed information relating to confidential sources, citing the DEA’s Davis Declaration, which says information concerning confidential sources could reasonably be expected to reveal their identities.
The DEA argued that such information receives extensive protection under FOIA, because disclosure could expose individuals who provided information to law enforcement.
The government further defended the withholding of information under FOIA Exemption 7(E), which protects certain records where disclosure could reveal non-public law-enforcement techniques and procedures.
The filing said the records were generated in the context of “a criminal investigation of a drug operation,” and releasing non-public investigative details could compromise law-enforcement methods.
The filing came against the background of an earlier ruling in the same case by US District Judge, Beryl Howell, in April 2025, where he considered FOIA requests for FBI and DEA records concerning Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele in connection with a federal investigation into an alleged international drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation. The earlier court proceedings involved requests relating to a Nigerian heroin-distribution organisation that operated from approximately 1988 to 1994 or later.
The court record identified “Tinubu, Bola Ahmed” among individuals referenced in the relevant FOIA request.
Howell also rejected the agencies’ attempt to rely on a Glomar response, which allows an agency to refuse to confirm or deny whether responsive records exist finding that the existence of the investigation had already been officially acknowledged, preventing the government from relying on that response in the circumstances before the court.
However, the September 23 filing does not disclose the substantive contents of the DEA records relating to Tinubu, or state how many of the records mention him, what confidential sources told investigators, whether any source made allegations against him, or whether the DEA found evidence of criminal wrongdoing by him.
