US agency says confidential declaration is needed to explain why some records from 1992–1993 investigation cannot be publicly released.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has asked a federal court in Washington, DC, for permission to submit a confidential declaration explaining why it is withholding some records relating to requests for information about President Bola Tinubu.
In an August 20 application before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the FBI said it could not publicly disclose the full basis for withholding certain information and requested permission to make an ex parte, in camera submission to the judge.
The agency said it had invoked several exemptions under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), including provisions covering personal privacy, confidential sources, law enforcement techniques and information that could endanger an individual’s life or physical safety.
The records sought include an FBI file on President Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records linked to a case from 1992 to 1993. The requests were filed by Aaron Greenspan, an American businessman and founder of PlainSite.
According to the FBI, releasing some of the withheld information could disclose law enforcement investigative techniques or reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of an individual.
The agency said it would submit the confidential declaration before August 28 if the court grants its request.
The development follows a wider legal dispute over Greenspan’s FOIA requests for records relating to investigations into a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s. Between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan filed 12 requests with six US federal agencies, seeking records concerning Tinubu and three other individuals he alleged were connected to the investigation.
Several agencies initially issued what is known as a “Glomar response”, declining to confirm or deny whether the requested records existed.
Greenspan challenged the responses in court, and in April 2025, US District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration had improperly relied on Glomar responses and ordered them lifted.
Howell held that the agencies had not established sufficient privacy interests or provided adequate evidence to justify refusing to confirm or deny the existence of the records.
The latest application concerns the FBI’s subsequent handling of specific records requested by Greenspan and does not, by itself, establish the allegations contained in the underlying requests.
The FBI’s application was published on X by Von Batten-Montague-York, a Washington-based lobbying firm recently engaged by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
The case remains before the US District Court for the District of Columbia, with the court yet to rule on the FBI’s request to file the confidential declaration.