BY TAIBAT UMMI YAKUBU

A United States federal court has rejected Aaron Greenspan’s request to obtain evidence from President Bola Tinubu and DCI Group over alleged cyberattacks on his website, ruling that the matter has no sufficient connection to his ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

The decision was delivered on October 30 by Judge Beryl A. Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, which also dismissed a request by non-party Karl Von Batten to submit an amicus curiae brief in the case.

Greenspan had sought permission to serve questions and document requests on Tinubu, as well as subpoena DCI Group for information relating to alleged distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on his website.

However, the court held that investigating the source of the alleged attacks would not help determine whether the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had properly searched for and withheld records requested under FOIA.

The judge also rejected Greenspan’s request for judicial notice of documents he intended to use in support of the discovery application, and denied his motion for summary judgment.

The case centres on Greenspan’s efforts to obtain historical investigative records from US federal agencies concerning a money-laundering and heroin-trafficking investigation involving a Chicago-based criminal network in the early 1990s. Tinubu was among the individuals named in the records requests and was allowed to participate in the proceedings as an intervening defendant.

The latest ruling, however, does not end the wider dispute over the release of the requested documents. While the court found that the FBI had conducted an adequate search and upheld some of the agencies’ grounds for withholding records, it ruled that further explanations were required for other withheld materials.

The FBI and DEA were consequently given another opportunity to provide additional justifications for keeping certain records undisclosed.

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Reacting to the decision, attorney Christopher W. Carmichael said the ruling reinforced the need to keep the FOIA proceedings focused on issues directly connected to the legal dispute.

“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,” Carmichael said.

He added that the rejection of the request against Tinubu and DCI Group underscored the importance of restricting the case to matters properly before the court.

Another attorney, Oluwole Afolabi, said the court’s decisions had established procedural limits for the ongoing litigation.

He noted that although Greenspan’s application for summary judgment and the request to introduce an amicus brief were rejected, the substantive FOIA questions remained before the court.

The development was made public by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, who announced the ruling on Saturday through his X account, referencing a statement issued in Washington, D.C.