President Bola Tinubu has filed a legal challenge in a United States court seeking to prevent the release of records connected to past allegations of drug trafficking, according to documents filed by his legal team.
The records are being sought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against several US government agencies, including the Department of Justice, FBI and DEA.
Greenspan is seeking documents relating to investigations involving Tinubu, including the FBI’s complete file on the Nigerian president and FBI Form 302 interview records covering the period between 1992 and 1993.
The FOIA case also concerns records reportedly connected to a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding in the United States involving about $460,000 allegedly linked to Tinubu. Tinubu has consistently denied wrongdoing.
According to a 16-page court filing shared with Channels Television by Tinubu’s lawyers, Christopher W. Carmichael, Victor P. Henderson and Oluwole O. Afolabi, the president argues that releasing the records could violate his privacy rights.
His legal team maintained that the fact that some information may have previously appeared in public records does not remove Tinubu’s privacy interest in the undisclosed contents of government investigative files.
The lawyers argued that scattered disclosures from a particular government file do not automatically make the entire file public, citing previous US Supreme Court and federal court decisions on privacy protections under FOIA.
They further argued that information about whether an individual was investigated is separate from the details contained within investigative records, insisting that Tinubu retains a privacy interest in information that has not previously been made public.
“Intervenor retains a privacy interest in potential disclosure of the investigative files sought by Plaintiff.”
Tinubu’s legal team also challenged Greenspan’s arguments regarding the adequacy of the FBI’s search, the DEA’s Vaughn Index, document-specific redactions and the application of FOIA exemptions to certain records.
The lawyers argued that Greenspan’s filings demonstrate that his primary objective is to obtain government documents containing Tinubu’s name.
They urged the court not to allow the FOIA process to become a means of accessing private information contained in government files simply because an individual’s name appears in those records.
“If this Court finds that Plaintiff cannot use FOIA to mine information in government files about a private individual, he should not be able to access documents with Intervenor’s ‘name on them.’”
Tinubu’s lawyers ultimately asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and allow the redactions or withholding of records by the FBI and DEA to remain in place.
The legal challenge does not amount to a finding that the allegations contained in the requested records are true or false. The dispute before the court concerns whether the requested government records should be released under the US Freedom of Information Act and whether privacy and other legal exemptions apply.
Source: US court documents.
