US court orders FBI, DEA to release records on Tinubu’s alleged drug case

A US District Court in Washington, D.C., has directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release records related to their investigations into President Bola Tinubu’s alleged links to a drug trafficking network.

In a ruling delivered on April 8, District Judge Beryl Howell ordered both agencies to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and search for non-exempt documents connected to Tinubu. The court also ruled that the agencies’ use of “Glomar responses”, refusals to confirm or deny the existence of records, must be lifted.

The FOIA requests were submitted in 2022 and 2023 by Aaron Greenspan, an American and founder of the legal transparency platform PlainSite. Greenspan requested information from six federal agencies: the FBI, DEA, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of State, and the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), concerning investigations into a heroin trafficking ring that operated in Chicago in the early 1990s.

The records requested pertained to four individuals allegedly linked to the ring: Bola Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele. Five of the agencies issued Glomar responses, declining to confirm or deny the existence of any related records.

Read also: US Court blocks FBI’s release of Tinubu’s records

After the Office of Information Policy upheld the agencies’ responses, Greenspan filed a lawsuit on June 12, 2023, initially naming the FBI, DEA, IRS, EOUSA, and State Department as defendants. The CIA was later added to the case. Eventually, the court proceedings focused on challenging the Glomar responses from the FBI, DEA, and CIA regarding Tinubu.

Judge Howell ruled that the FBI and DEA had failed to demonstrate any valid privacy interest that would justify withholding confirmation of an investigation involving Tinubu. The court found that both agencies had previously confirmed his connection to the drug trafficking probe, and thus, public interest outweighed any privacy concerns.

However, the judge upheld the CIA’s Glomar response, citing the plaintiff’s acknowledgment that the agency had already confirmed the existence of relevant records.

“For the reasons discussed above, plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment as to each of the four Glomar responses asserted by defendants FBI and DEA, while defendant CIA is entitled to summary judgment, since its Glomar response was properly asserted,” the judge ruled.

“Accordingly, the FBI and
DEA must search for and process non-exempt records responsive to the FOIA requests directed to these agencies.”

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The court granted summary judgment in favor of Greenspan concerning the FBI and DEA, while the CIA’s position was upheld. Both the FBI and DEA have been ordered to process and release any non-exempt documents. All parties involved are to provide a joint status report on outstanding matters by May 2, 2025.