Lawyers for Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have asked a federal court in Washington to reject Aaron Greenspan’s bid for additional records about him, arguing that the material concerns Tinubu’s private life before he entered politics and is protected by privacy laws.
In a filing dated August 28, 2026, in Greenspan v. Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Tinubu’s lawyers asked the court to deny Greenspan’s motion for summary judgment and leave in place the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration’s redactions and withholdings.
Tinubu intervened in the lawsuit to protect his interests in records held by the agencies.
The 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.
They say disclosure could invade the privacy of people named in those files without advancing a public interest recognised under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The filing places particular emphasis on when the records were created. It says the events at issue predate Tinubu’s presidency and that he was a private citizen at the time.
“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 contend 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, they say 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.’”
Tinubu’s 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.
They also cite 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. Tinubu’s 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, revealed only the existence of a forfeiture action.
They say those documents did not disclose “the details of a possible criminal investigation (or its results) involving Intervenor.”
Citing the U.S. 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.
They also 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 U.S. 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.
The lawyers characterise the requests as seeking information about a private individual rather than evidence of government misconduct.
They 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 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 presents his lawyers’ arguments; it is not a final ruling by the court.
