The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) faces a court deadline on Friday, August 28, to oppose the release of records relating to President Bola Tinubu in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case.
The FBI, alongside the US Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Tinubu, is required to file its opposition to the release of the records by today, according to the court timetable.
The records are being sought by American transparency activist Aaron Greenspan, who filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against several US government agencies seeking documents relating to investigations involving Tinubu.
Greenspan’s requests include the FBI’s entire file on Tinubu and FBI Form 302 interview records concerning the period between 1992 and 1993.
The case also involves records connected to a 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding in the United States involving about $460,000 linked to Tinubu.
The FBI has separately asked the US District Court for the District of Columbia for permission to submit a confidential declaration explaining why some of the requested records should remain withheld.
The bureau filed the request on August 20, asking to provide the explanation ex parte and in camera, meaning the material would be presented privately to Judge Beryl Howell and kept from public disclosure.
The FBI said it could not publicly explain the full basis for withholding some of the records because doing so could expose sensitive law-enforcement techniques or potentially endanger the life or physical safety of an individual.
The agency is relying on exemptions under the US Freedom of Information Act that protect certain law-enforcement techniques and information whose disclosure could threaten an individual’s safety.
The court has granted the FBI permission to make the private submission, while requiring the parties to meet today’s deadline for their positions on the release of the records.
The dispute follows an earlier ruling in which Judge Howell rejected the FBI and DEA’s broad use of a “Glomar response”, a position that allows US agencies in certain circumstances to neither confirm nor deny whether requested records exist.
The judge previously found that the agencies could not rely on that response in the circumstances of the case and directed them to search for and process records responsive to Greenspan’s requests, subject to lawful exemptions and redactions.
The records have attracted particular attention because they relate to historical US investigations and allegations concerning drug trafficking involving Tinubu.
However, the FOIA case is not a criminal trial and the court is not determining whether Tinubu committed a drug-trafficking offence. Tinubu has not been convicted of drug trafficking in the United States.
Today’s deadline therefore does not mean the records will automatically become public. The court must still consider the parties’ arguments, the FBI’s confidential submission and any applicable exemptions before determining what information can be released.
The next stage of the case will depend on the filings due today and the court’s subsequent consideration of whether the requested records, in whole or in part, should be disclosed.
(The Whistler)
