A long-running legal battle over United States government records concerning President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has entered a new phase.
While the Nigerian presidency insisting that the dispute is a civil Freedom of Information Act case and not a criminal prosecution, the requester is seeking fuller disclosure of records generated during a decades-old investigation.
The case, Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in June 2023. It remains open before Judge Beryl A. Howell.
The plaintiff, Aaron Greenspan, brought the action after federal agencies issued
responses declining, in some instances, to confirm or deny whether they held records covered by his requests.
The central issue now is whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration lawfully withheld or redacted portions of records they have produced.
The Presidency said in a statement on Thursday that the FBI and DEA have supplied 399 pages, with portions withheld under statutory exemptions.
Recent independent reporting has
described the production more broadly as thousands of pages, making the precise total and scope of the latest production a matter that should be resolved from the docket and the parties’ filings rather than political statements.
What the lawsuit is about
Greenspan submitted 12 FOIA requests in 2022 and 2023 to six federal agencies or components: the FBI, DEA, Central Intelligence Agency, Internal Revenue Service, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and Department of State.
The requests sought records connected
to a joint investigation into a Chicago- area heroin-distribution and money- laundering organisation that operated in the early 1990s.
They named four people, including Tinubu, Abiodun Agbele, Lee Andrew Edwards and Mueez Adegboyega Akande.
Among the requests were the FBI’s entire file on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records concerning him during 1992 and 1993. Form 302 reports are interview summaries prepared by FBI agents.
Greenspan also sought records relating to a 1993 civil-forfeiture proceeding involving approximately $460,000 and accounts associated with Tinubu, according to the court record and reporting on the litigation.
The agencies initially relied in part on what is known as a Glomar response. Under that approach, an agency says it can neither confirm nor deny whether responsive records exist.
The response is intended to prevent the mere acknowledgment of a file from revealing protected information, such as intelligence sources, investigative methods or a person’s connection to law enforcement.
The U.S. Justice Department’s FOIA guidance recognises that a Glomar response may be used in appropriate circumstances, but it is tied to a specific exemption and the harm that would result from confirming or denying the existence of records.
FOIA also requires agencies to release reasonably segregable, non-exempt portions of documents.
What Judge Howell decided in 2025
In a memorandum opinion dated April 8, 2025, Judge Howell drew an important distinction between the existence of an investigation and the contents of investigative files.
She ruled that the Glomar responses issued by the FBI and DEA in relation to Tinubu were improper and ordered those agencies to search for and process non-exempt responsive records.
She reached that conclusion after finding that the Justice Department had officially acknowledged Tinubu as a subject of a criminal investigation involving the FBI and DEA.
The court’s opinion referred to a govt affidavit describing probable cause to believe that funds in certain bank accounts controlled by Tinubu were involved in transactions allegedly connected to drug-trafficking proceeds.
The opinion also said the affidavit described investigative work by the FBI, DEA and IRS and identified Tinubu as one subject of that broader investigation.
That finding did not amount to a criminal conviction or a judicial determination that Tinubu committed a crime. It addressed the agencies’ ability to withhold the fact of an investigation through a categorical Glomar response.
The court expressly left room for the
agencies to examine individual records and withhold or redact material covered by particular FOIA exemptions.
The judge reached a different result for the CIA. She sustained the CIA’s Glomar response because the material cited by Greenspan did not officially acknowledge CIA records specifically concerning Tinubu.
The court said broad publicly available material about Nigeria and heroin trafficking was not enough to establish that the CIA had acknowledged responsive records about him.
Why records were redacted
The FBI and DEA have argued that portions of the produced records are protected under several FOIA provisions.
The reasons described in the Presidency’s statement and in reporting on the parties’ filings include grand-jury material, attorney-client and attorney work -product protections, law- enforcement investigative information, personal privacy, confidential sources and investigative techniques.
The most contested provision is likely Exemption 7(C), which protects law- enforcement records where disclosure could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
The Justice Department describes Exemption 7(C) as requiring.a balance between the individual’s privacy interest and the public interest in disclosure.
In the 2025 opinion, Judge Howell said the agencies had conflated two separate interests:.Tinubu’s interest in keeping secret the fact that he was investigated, and his privacy interest in the contents of any investigative files.
The first interest had been substantially
diminished by the government’s official acknowledgment, the judge reasoned.
The second could still support particular redactions or withholdings, but it did not justify treating the entire request categorically through a Glomar response.
This distinction is at the heart of the current dispute. The fact that a person was investigated does not, by itself, establish that every document in an investigative file is public.
Conversely, the presence of private names or sensitive details does not
automatically permit an agency to withhold an entire file if non-exempt material can reasonably be separated and released.
Tinubu’s position
Tinubu was allowed to participate in the case as an intervenor. In a response filed in August, his lawyers asked the court to reject Greenspan’s bid for additional disclosure and to leave the FBI and DEA’s redactions and withholdings in place.
The president’s legal team argues that FOIA is designed to reveal what the government is doing, not to provide unrestricted access to information that the government has collected about a private individual.
The lawyers contend that Greenspan’s requests focus primarily on Tinubu’s identity and personal history rather than on demonstrating misconduct by the FBI, DEA or another agency.
They also argue that the lifting of the Glomar responses did not eliminate Tinubu’s separate privacy interest in the contents of any investigative records.
The lawyers say priorpublic references to Tinubu or to a forfeiture proceeding do not waive the privacy protections applicable to undisclosed details, other individuals, confidential sources, grandjury proceedings or investigative methods.
Tinubu’s counsel, Chris Carmichael, told BBC News Pidgin that the president was
exercising ordinary legal rights on the advice of counsel and that doing so should not be interpreted as an admission of wrongdoing.
Tinubu has repeatedly denied involvement in drug trafficking and has maintained that no U.S. court convicted him of a criminal offence.
The Presidency’s September 3 statement similarly urged journalists to distinguish between a civil records-disclosure proceeding and a criminal case.
It said the court has not found Tinubu guilty of criminal wrongdoing and that the legality of the remaining redactions is for Judge Howell to decide under U.S. law.
Greenspan’s position and the public- interest question
Greenspan is seeking further disclosure and has challenged the adequacy of the agencies’ searches, their explanations for withholding material and the extent to which they released segregable portions.
Reporting on the latest filings says the requester argues that the records are relevant to public scrutiny of the background and fitness of Nigeria’s
president, as well as to the conduct of U.S. law-enforcement agencies.
FOIA’s public-interest test is narrower than general public curiosity. The court’s 2025 opinion said a requester must identify a significant public interest focused on informing citizens about government operations and show that the requested information is likely to
advance that interest.
That standard does not necessarily foreclose disclosure in a case involving a sitting foreign head of state. It does mean that the legal question is not simply whether Nigerians, Americans or political opponents want to know more about Tinubu.
The court must assess whether release would illuminate government conduct and whether that interest outweighs the relevant privacy and law-enforcement concerns for each category of withheld information.
The dispute has also become entangled in Nigerian political debate. The Presidency has criticised public commentary by Atiku Abubakar and associates, saying they are not parties
to the case.
That political dispute is separate from the litigation. The named plaintiff is
Greenspan, the defendants include U.S. agencies, and Tinubu is an intervenor.
The judge— not political figures or public commentators—will determine whether the agencies’ latest explanations satisfy the statute.
The 2003 consular letter
The Presidency’s statement also revisited a February 4, 2003 letter from the U.S. consulate in Lagos to then Inspector-General of Police Tafa Balogun.
According to the statement, the.letter said an FBI records check found no criminal arrest records, wants or warrants for Tinubu, who was then a former Lagos governor.
That account is relevant to the political debate but should not be confused with the present court’s findings.
An absence of arrest records, wants or warrants at one point in time would not necessarily resolve whether agencies later held investigative records, whether an investigation occurred without an arrest, or what any such records contained.
The 2025 court opinion addressed official acknowledgment and FOIA procedure; it did not treat the 2003 letter as a dispositive finding on the underlying allegations.
What happens next
According to the September 3 statement, Greenspan has until September 11 to oppose the defendants’ and intervenor’s filings and reply, while the FBI, DEA and Tinubu have until September 18 to respond to any processes Greenspan files.
Those dates describe the next
procedural steps, not a final ruling on disclosure.
Judge Howell will ultimately have to decide whether the agencies conducted adequate searches, properly applied the claimed exemptions, released all reasonably segregable material and gave sufficient explanations for the redactions.
The court may uphold some withholdings, order additional releases, require more detailed declarations or take other steps under FOIA practice.
The most accurate description of the case is therefore narrower than many of the political claims surrounding it.
The public record establishes that U.S. authorities investigated a matter in which Tinubu was identified as a subject, that a federal judge ordered the FBI and DEA to process non-exempt records, and that the agencies have produced documents with.redactions.
It does not establish a criminal conviction, a finding of guilt, or that every allegation made in public commentary is supported by the released records.
The unresolved question is whether the remaining secrecy is justified document by document. That determination belongs to the U.S. District Court, based on the filings, evidence and FOIA’s statutory exemptions.
