US Court turns down request to question Tinubu over alleged cyberattacks

A federal court in the United States has turned down a request from Aaron Greenspan, an American activist, to question President Bola Tinubu and the DCI Group. This is about alleged cyberattacks on his website in a lawsuit that seeks government records related to the Nigerian president.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Friday that the proposed questioning was not relevant enough to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The court also rejected Mr Greenspan's motion for summary judgment. They also turned down a separate request from Karl Von Batten to file an amicus curiae brief. Additionally, Mr Greenspan's request for judicial notice was denied.

Mr Tinubu's lawyers, Christopher Carmichael and Oluwole Afolabi, said the ruling helps to keep the case focused on the legal issues at hand. "The Court's decision makes clear that this Freedom of Information Act proceeding cannot be used to pursue discovery unrelated to the legal questions before it," Mr Carmichael said.

The presidency released a statement on Saturday confirming the court's decision and the reactions from Messrs Carmichael and Afolabi. "While the underlying FOIA issues remain before the Court, these rulings establish important procedural boundaries and clarify which matters are appropriate for consideration in this litigation," Mr Afolabi said.

In September, Mr Greenspan asked the court to allow him to ask Mr Tinubu four questions regarding alleged denial-of-service attacks on PlainSite, his legal research website. Mr Greenspan argued that Mr Tinubu had not denied involvement from himself, his government, or anyone acting for him, including DCI Group AZ, LLC.

Mr Greenspan wrote, "If that is so, the four requests for admission can be answered in minutes." However, his filing did not prove that Mr Tinubu or DCI Group carried out the attacks, nor did it show any evidence of who was responsible.

In opposition, Mr Tinubu stated that "there is no independent verification" of the alleged attacks. The latest ruling denies Mr Greenspan's request to investigate Mr Tinubu and DCI Group further in this FOIA case.

Mr Greenspan, along with Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin, made several FOIA requests to US government agencies from 2022 to 2023. They sought records about Mr Tinubu and Abiodun Agbele. The requests included documents from a joint investigation involving the FBI, DEA, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and US attorneys' offices in Illinois and Indiana.

Mr Greenspan claimed the records were linked to decisions related to a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s. Other individuals mentioned in the requests included Lee Edwards and Mueez Akande.

The agencies initially gave what is called a "Glomar response," a legal stance that allows them to neither confirm nor deny the existence of records if disclosing them could reveal protected information. Mr Greenspan challenged these responses at the US Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy, but the agency upheld the decisions.

He then filed a lawsuit on 12 June 2023 against the FBI, DEA, IRS, Executive Office for US Attorneys and the Department of State. The Central Intelligence Agency was later added to the case.

The court allowed Mr Tinubu to join the case as an intervenor. The latest ruling comes amid another dispute over releasing records from a 1993 investigation involving Mr Tinubu.

On 28 August, the FBI submitted records to Judge Beryl Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, following a court order. The documents are still sealed while the court decides on them.

According to court filings, the records were submitted "under seal, ex parte, in camera," meaning they were given for the judge's private review and not made available to Mr Greenspan or the public. The FBI and DEA have produced 399 pages of records, but some parts were redacted for legal reasons.

Mr Greenspan is challenging these redactions and wants more information released. The dispute partly revolves around the forfeiture of $460,000 by Mr Tinubu to the US government in 1993, after American authorities linked the money to drug trafficking.

Mr Tinubu has claimed that the requested documents could contain confidential tax information and law enforcement records protected by US privacy laws. His lawyers argued that releasing these investigative files could violate his privacy rights, even if some details about the 1993 forfeiture had already been 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," his lawyers said.

The FBI and DEA have also defended their choice to withhold or redact parts of the records, citing protections for grand jury proceedings, attorney-client communications, personal privacy, and investigative methods. Mr Tinubu has separately pointed to a FOIA exemption concerning personal privacy.

The records submitted to Judge Howell are still subject to the court's decision on whether the agencies had the legal right to withhold or redact the information.