US court denies urgent request to release classified information on Tinubu
A US court has rejected an urgent request to speed up the disclosure of classified information on President Bola Tinubu by some American agencies. The decision was made by Judge Beryl Howell on Monday.
The plaintiff, Aaron Greenspan, had sued the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in June under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
He claimed that the agencies had violated the FOIA by not releasing within the legal time frame “documents relating to alleged federal investigations into” President Tinubu and one Mueez Adegboyega Akande, who is now dead.
He said he wanted the records from the Northern District of Illinois and/or Northern District of Indiana “involving charging decisions” against Messrs Tinubu and Akande.
According to court documents, the EOUSA had turned down Mr Greenspan’s FOIA request “invoking FOIA Exemptions 6 and 7©, which protect information that would constitute unwarranted invasions of personal privacy and information compiled for law enforcement purposes that may constitute an unwarranted invasion of the personal privacy of a third party.”
Judge Howell denied the request, saying Mr Greenspan did not meet the conditions for granting his request.
“Plaintiff has failed even to attempt to argue how his request may overcome those exemptions and achieve a likelihood of success on the merits. This failure to address this important factor in his Emergency Motion weighs strongly in favour of denying his motion,” Ms Howell said.
She cited several cases to support the conditions, and noted that Mr Greenspan must prove “that irreparable injury is likely in the absence of an injunction,” “rather than a mere possibility.”
“Plaintiff falls far short of satisfying this standard. He has not supplied the court with any indication of a concrete, actual threat that he will suffer in the absence of an injunction. While his Emergency Motion states that a Nigerian Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to occur in the coming days, plaintiff cites no injury he will suffer that is in any way traceable to the relief requested in this motion.”
The judge further explained that Mr Greenspan’s request “…may be of a highly sensitive and private nature and that the subject of those documents, Bola A. Tinubu, has had no opportunity to protect his privacy interests in any such records.”
Therefore, “the balance of equities militates strongly in favor of denying this Emergency Motion.”
Ms Howell said there was no need to consider Mr Greenspan’s request for a hearing to “discuss even the most remote possibility of documents being produced before the October 31, 2023 [sic] chosen by defendants for themselves,”
“For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff’s Emergency Motion for a Hearing to Compel Immediate Document Production, ECF No. 17 is DENIED. SO ORDERED,” the judge said.
The rejection of Mr Greenspan’s request came before the Nigerian Supreme Court heard Atiku Abubakar’s case against President Tinubu’s election on Monday in Abuja. A seven-member panel of the Nigerian Supreme Court on Monday listened to Atiku and Peter Obi’s appeals seeking to overturn Mr Tinubu’s victory in the 25 February presidential election.
President Bola Tinubu’s eligibility to run for Nigeria’s presidency was a major issue at the Presidential Election Petition Court where Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi challenged his election. The matter of Mr Tinubu’s forfeiture of $460,000 to the US government in 1993 after the authorities linked the money to proceeds of drug trafficking was brought up by the challengers.
The election court unanimously dismissed the cases on 6 September, confirming Mr Tinubu’s election. In June, Mr Tinubu through his lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, presented before the court a letter from the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, clearing Mr Tinubu of any criminal conviction or arrest in the U.S.
