President Bola Tinubu has asked a United States court to prevent the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from releasing records linked to past allegations of drug trafficking involving him.
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.
Greenspan is seeking documents connected to investigations involving Tinubu, including the FBI’s complete file on the Nigerian President and FBI Form 302 interview records from 1992 and 1993.
The lawsuit also concerns records reportedly linked to a 1993 US civil forfeiture case involving approximately $460,000 associated with Tinubu.
Tinubu has consistently denied wrongdoing.
In court documents filed on Friday, his lawyers argued that releasing the records could infringe on the President’s privacy rights.
The legal team, comprising Christopher W. Carmichael, Victor P. Henderson and Oluwole O. Afolabi, maintained that the earlier forfeiture proceedings did not publicly disclose the details or outcome of any possible criminal investigation involving Tinubu.
“Submitted in that proceeding, did not reveal the details of a possible criminal investigation (or its results) involving Intervenor,” the lawyers argued.
They said Greenspan was seeking the documents precisely because the information contained in them was not already publicly available.
Tinubu’s lawyers further argued that the disclosure of some information from a government file in the past does not automatically eliminate an individual’s privacy interest in other information contained in the same records.
“The purpose of Plaintiff’s motion is to obtain such information because it is not public,” the document stated.
The lawyers cited previous decisions of the US Supreme Court in support of their position, arguing that individuals can retain privacy rights over undisclosed portions of government records even when some information from those records has previously entered the public domain.
“While some information may appear in portions of public records, an individual still retains a privacy interest in the details that remain undisclosed,” they argued.
The President’s legal team also maintained that being connected to a previous investigation does not mean that the contents of investigative files should automatically be made public.
“Regardless of the prior disclosure in the forfeiture proceeding, Intervenor retains a privacy interest in potential disclosure of the investigative files sought by Plaintiff,” the lawyers stated.
Tinubu’s lawyers also challenged several aspects of Greenspan’s case, including arguments concerning the FBI’s search for records, the DEA’s records index and documents that were withheld or released with portions redacted.
According to the legal team, Greenspan’s central objective is to obtain US government records containing Tinubu’s name.
They therefore urged the court to reject the request for the release of records they argue are protected from disclosure under US privacy laws.
The legal dispute is part of a broader FOIA battle over historical US government records concerning Tinubu. The court will ultimately determine whether the agencies can withhold the disputed records and whether the privacy protections relied upon by Tinubu’s lawyers apply to the documents being sought.
Tinubu has not been convicted of drug trafficking, and the allegations surrounding the historical US records remain disputed. The current proceedings concern the release of government records, rather than a criminal trial against the Nigerian President.
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