President Tinubu's Secret Files: US Court Battle Brews Over FBI/DEA Records

A federal court in Washington is the scene of a significant legal battle over requests for records pertaining to Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Transparency activist Aaron Greenspan initiated a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, known as Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, seeking historical FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) records related to Tinubu. President Tinubu has intervened in the lawsuit to protect his interests in records held by these agencies, arguing against the full disclosure of material.

Tinubu’s lawyers filed arguments on August 28, 2026, requesting the court to reject Greenspan’s bid for additional records. They contend that the material concerns Tinubu’s private life before he entered politics, specifically events from 1993 when he was a student, and is therefore protected by privacy laws. The lawyers emphasize that his later election to public office does not erase privacy protections for records concerning his earlier private life, citing D.C. Circuit precedent that public officials do not "forfeit their personal privacy for FOIA purposes." They primarily rely on FOIA Exemption 7(C), which permits agencies to withhold law-enforcement information if disclosure could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, and also cite the Privacy Act as an independent basis for protection.

Furthermore, Tinubu's legal team disputes Greenspan’s reliance on the public-domain doctrine, arguing that previously disclosed information, such as the 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding, only revealed the existence of an action and not the details of a possible criminal investigation. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, they assert that a person can retain a privacy interest in undisclosed government file information even if some related details are public. They also challenge Greenspan's claim of public interest, arguing that the "Nigerian public's general interest" or efforts to "influence politics in a foreign nation" are not the kind of interests FOIA is designed to advance, as FOIA aims to shed light on U.S. government activities, not satisfy "general public curiosity" about an individual.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, led by Jeanine Pirro, has actively defended the FBI and DEA's refusal to fully disclose the law enforcement records. In a September 23, 2026 filing, the government asked a federal judge to grant summary judgment to the FBI and DEA, asserting that the agencies conducted reasonable searches for records, including searching "Bola" and "Tinubu" separately and manually reviewing relevant files, and properly withheld or redacted information protected by federal law. They maintain that any separable non-exempt information has been released.

The government relies on several FOIA exemptions to justify the withholdings. These include Exemption 5, which protects records reflecting the "thought process, strategy and legal impressions" of U.S. Attorney’s Office personnel in third-party criminal cases, and Exemption 7(F), which covers law-enforcement records whose release could endanger someone’s life or physical safety. Other cited exemptions concern the potential revelation of federal grand-jury information, pen-register data, confidential sources, investigative techniques, and the identities or information of private individuals.

Jeanine Pirro's involvement is noteworthy, given her background. Appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by then-President Donald Trump in May 2025 and confirmed by the Senate in August 2025, Pirro is a prominent Trump supporter and former Fox News personality. A source close to the U.S. case described the government’s strong defense of Tinubu and Pirro’s role, stating, "When you have Jeanine Pirro defending Tinubu. That is the entire Trump administration." The source characterized the filing as "a very strong pushback against Aaron’s request."